


The Wolf Inside

by DiscontentedWinter



Series: Little Wild Animal Universe [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst with a Happy Ending, Body Dysphoria, Canon-Typical Violence, Depression, Drug Use, First Kiss, First Time, Gender Dysphoria, Genderfluid Character, M/M, Minor Character Death, Original Character(s), Self-Destruction, Sexual Content, all werewolf AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2018-04-16 15:22:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 64,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4630269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DiscontentedWinter/pseuds/DiscontentedWinter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alex Hale is a boy. The wolf inside him isn't. </p><p>It's hard being different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [littlefrog1025](https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlefrog1025/gifts).



(13)

Alex Hale is thirteen when he meets Jason Cormack. Jason is fourteen. He’s taller than Alex. He’s blond, and he has a friendly smile, and he’s on the basketball team. He’s smart, and he’s funny, and he’s nice to Alex even though most kids think Alex is a freak. Alex maybe wants to be Jason’s friend. He also maybe wants to be his girlfriend.

It’s complicated.

Alex is a boy, but his wolf is a girl. Around full moon, when the pull of the wolf is strongest, Alex sometimes wears dresses and paints his nails, and pees sitting down with his eyes closed so he doesn’t have to see his dick. His pack knows about the dresses and the nail polish, but Alex doesn’t tell them about the way the sight of his own body makes him feel sick, and makes him want to rip his way out of his skin.

He’s a girl.

Around full moon he’s a girl, but there’s a boy staring at him from the mirror.

Sometimes he hates that boy, and wants to hurt him.

He hates his flat chest and his narrow hips and his dick.

He hates that there are two parts of him that don’t match up.

When his mom takes him to his first psychologist, they talk about something called transitioning. Alex thinks that means that he could become a girl, like properly. Except Alex can’t transition. Or, rather, he transitions every fucking month. If he looked like a girl on the outside, it wouldn’t solve the problem, would it? It’d just mean that instead of staring into the mirror on the full moon and hating the boy staring back at him, Alex would be staring into the mirror every new moon, knowing he was a boy, and hating the girl staring back.

Alex tries to pretend he isn’t different at all, but everyone knows. The other kids at school know too, because the first kid Alex tells—Sean, his friend since second grade—tells everyone. Alex knows the second he walks into school the next day and the other kids start whispering things and talking behind their hands, and when he goes to sit with his friends at lunch there’s no room at the table and he has to sit by himself. And he tries not to cry, but everyone sees that too.

His little brother Matty comes and sits with him, but that makes it worse somehow, because Alex has made Matty choose between his freak of a brother and his friends, and Matty should have picked his friends.

It takes a few months of eating with Matty, or hiding out in the library at lunch time, but eventually Alex finds some new friends. The loser kids. They aren’t really losers though. The other kids say they are because maybe their parents are poor, or maybe they’re fat, or maybe they just don’t wear the right clothes, or maybe, like Harriet, they’re deaf, but it turns out they're kind of cool. They don’t care that Alex sometimes feels like a boy and sometimes feels like a girl so long as Alex doesn’t care about the stuff that made them freaks or losers. It still hurts sometimes when Sean doesn’t talk to him or sit next to him in class, but Alex doesn’t cry at school anymore.

Not until Jason Cormack makes friends with him.

It’s weird.

It’s weird to start with when Jason walks over to their table at lunch and starts talking like they’re friends, and then it gets weirder when he asks if Alex wants to shoot some hoops with him after school. Alex looks around at his friends before he answers, and they look as startled as he does, but nobody is giving him any warning signals that Jason is setting him up to beat him up or something.

“Um, okay?” he says.

“Cool,” Jason says, grinning. “Cool.”

And then he walks away.

“Alex,” Mackenzie says, chewing on the end of one of her uneven braids, “what was that?”

Alex’s heart is beating really fast. “I don’t know!”

After school Alex heads to the basketball court. He’s supposed to be going to the high school to meet his sister Cora and their cousin Malia to get a lift home, but he texts them instead to say he’ll walk. When he pushes open the door to the court, he’s kind of expecting an ambush or a bucket of pig’s blood or something, but it’s only Jason waiting for him, sitting on the bottom row of seats in the bleachers, bouncing a basketball in the space between his spread knees.

Alex is really, really careful not to look up his baggy shorts.

“Hey,” Jason says when he sees him. “Cool. You made it.”

“Um, yeah.” Alex shrugs his backpack off.

“You ready to play?”

“Yeah.”

Alex is pretty bad at basketball. He can sometimes hold his own when he’s shooting hoops with Matty, but this is totally different, because Matty’s pretty bad at basketball too, but Jason is on the team and everything. So, when Alex actually gets close enough to the hoop to try and shoot, of course he misses. Spectacularly.

So much for werewolf reflexes.

Jason throws the ball back. “You almost got it.”

Alex raises his eyebrows. Almost? He was like miles off.

He really has no idea why Jason asked him to play. He knows Jason’s going easy on him, too. Like there’s no way Alex should be able to get past him. Jason doesn’t even complain when Alex forgets to dribble the ball.

The next time Alex shoots, the ball doesn’t even hit the backboard, just sails right on past it and rolls under the bleachers.

“I think you’re getting better,” Jason says with a goofy smile.

Alex is too out of breath to argue the point.

He does _not_ look at Jason’s ass when Jason commando-crawls under the bleachers to fetch the ball. He can feel his face burning when Jason stands up again.

“I, um, I have to go,” he says.

Jason’s face falls. “Oh, okay.”

Alex scurries to fetch his backpack, holding it awkwardly in front of him because he can feel himself getting hard.

“Do you want to play again tomorrow?” Jason asks him, and he looks so weirdly hopeful that Alex really doesn’t know how to refuse.

“Um, okay,” he says, then turns and hurries away.

***

The Hale house is built out in the Preserve, a couple of miles from town. Alex doesn’t mind walking though. He’s got a lot to think about. He doesn’t know if Jason is trying to be his friend, or trying to set him up to humiliate him, or what’s going on.

Maybe he could ask Derek.

Derek’s his second-oldest brother. He’s twenty-two. He’s also Alex’s favorite brother. Talia, their mom, says that he and Derek are like two peas in a pod, but Alex doesn’t really get that. Both he and Derek are pretty quiet compared to the rest of the pack, but Derek’s quiet because he’s thoughtful and kind, and Alex is quiet because he hates drawing attention to himself nowadays. When he was a kid he was as loud and boisterous as the rest of the Hales. It’s only been in the last year or so that he’s changed. Also, Alex is pretty sure that Derek doesn’t hate himself.

As he gets closer to the house, Alex’s chest tightens up.

No. He won’t ask Derek.

Derek’s busy.

Last week Derek and Cora were out in the Preserve and they found a human, a real live human, except the human doesn’t know he’s a human because he’s been living with foxes. He’s feral. He can’t even talk.

Mom says that nobody can find out about the human, or someone will come and take him away and put him in a zoo or something. So nobody outside the immediate pack is to be invited back to the house, in case they catch his unfamiliar scent. Cora and Malia were pretty pissed about that, but Alex doesn’t mind. It doesn’t really affect him, because who’s he going to invite back to the house anyway?

He tightens his grip on the straps of his backpack and pushes thoughts of Jason Cormack away.

If Jason was being nice, that was all it was.

And if he’s being an asshole and setting Alex up for something, well... Alex wants to believe that he can deal with it, but it’s a lie, probably.

He thinks of Charlie.

Charlie was his friend too. Not his best friend like Sean, but still his friend. The day after everyone found out, Charlie sat behind him in math like always, and tapped him on the shoulder and passed him a note.

\- You ok?

Alex had scribbled back a reply:

\- Yeah.

They’d passed the note back and forth a few times, and very slowly the tightness in Alex’s chest had eased, and the pain in his stomach had disappeared. It would be okay. He was sure it would be okay.

\- Want to come to my place on Friday and watch a movie?

Alex had chewed his lip before he’d replied.

\- Will the other guys be there?

He’d heard snickering behind him as Charlie had written out his answer. He’d felt everyone staring at his back. When he’d got the note back, he’d unfolded it with shaking fingers, understanding what was happening at last, waiting for the punchline.

\- I thought you’d want to be alone so you could suck my dick like a real girl.

And underneath that, written five different times in five different hands, the same word:

\- BITCH.

Alex had folded the note up and shoved it in the bottom of his backpack while the boys behind him started howling with laughter. Then he’d sat there, pen clutched tightly in his hand, trying not to react as the bemused teacher demanded to know what was going on.

After school he’d run most of the way home, stopping only to tear the note into shreds and bury it in a hole in the Preserve so nobody would ever find it.

Even now the humiliation is as sharp as it was when it happened.

No.

No, he can’t fall for a trick like that again.

He won’t meet Jason tomorrow.

He won’t.

***

He’s quiet at dinner. Nobody notices. Everyone else is so rowdy that it’s easy to get lost in the noise. Derek usually sits near him, but not tonight. Derek’s down in the basement eating with the kit.

Alex eats quickly, then takes his plate into the kitchen and leaves it by the sink. He escapes upstairs before anyone can ask him about his day, and hides in his room. He reaches under his mattress and pulls out the glossy fashion magazine he took out of the recycling last month. He thinks it was either Malia’s or Cora’s.

He flips through the pages, frowning.

It’s a new moon still, a fingernail moon.

Alex looks at the pictures of the models and thinks they’re hot. But last time he looked at these pages, two weeks ago, he didn’t get hard looking at the models. He didn’t want to make out with them, he wanted to _be_ them. He wanted to wear the same clothes they wore, and the same cosmetics that made their eyes smoky and huge and their mouths bright. He wanted to imagine that he could walk down a street looking beautiful, and a boy would like him for it.

He hates the way he is.

He shoves the magazine back under his mattress and curls up in a ball on his bed.

He thinks of Jason, and of Sean and Charlie.

He thinks of that note he ripped into pieces and buried in the dirt.

Doesn’t matter what he did with it.

He can still remember every word.

***

Two days later Jason finds him in the library.

“Hey,” he says. “You, um, you didn’t show yesterday.”

“Yeah,” Alex says, staring at the toes of his trainers. “Sorry, I couldn’t.”

“Oh, okay,” Jason says, and then just stands there for a bit longer.

Alex chews his lip. Why isn’t he going away? Alex isn’t going to snatch the bait, so there’s no point Jason hanging around trying, right? He’s not going to fall for whatever joke Jason’s trying to play on him.

“Do you want to hang out this afternoon?” Jason asks, his voice soft.

Alex looks up at him before he can stop himself, and is surprised to see Jason’s wide-eyed, like he’s nervous or something. He stares quickly at the floor again. “I can’t. Sorry.”

“Oh, okay.” Jason’s trainers scrape over the threadbare carpet as he finally gets the hint and goes away.

Alex turns and leans against the stacks. The books smell old and stale. He closes his eyes and slowly unclenches his fists. He takes a few deep breaths and tries not to second-guess himself.

Jason wasn’t serious. It was a trick. It had to be.

Anyway, even if Jason is from another planet and actually wanted to be his friend, Alex just did him a favor.

The popular kids aren’t friends with the losers and the freaks.

That’s how school works.

That’s how _life_ works.


	2. Chapter 2

 

(13)

 

Because Jason noticed him, now Alex can’t help noticing Jason. They only have one class together. It’s Geography. Alex is a gifted student, so he’s taking a ninth grade class even though he’s in eighth grade. He takes a few of them. He sits at the front of the class. He never used to, but it’s something that kind of happened. Just like he can’t sit with the popular kids in the cafeteria anymore, or up the back of the bus on a field trip, he knows he has to sit at the front now. The unwritten rules are easy to understand.

Jason sits a few rows back from him, across the other side of the room.

He’s smart.

He always knows the right answer to any question the teacher asks, and he doesn’t freak out when she springs pop quizzes on them. He’s funny too, and sure of himself. Like so sure of himself that he tells stupid dad jokes and doesn’t even get embarrassed by how lame they are.

One Friday he shoots his hand up in class. “Mrs. Foster! Mrs. Foster!”

Their teacher looks at him with an expectant smile. “What, Jason?”

“Mrs. Foster, what’s white and fuzzy and always points north?”

Mrs. Foster raises her eyebrows.

“A polar bearing!”

The class erupts into laughter.

Alex chews on the end of his pen, determined not to join in. That’s one of the unwritten rules as well. He sits in this classroom, but he’s not one of them. He’s supposed to be invisible. He’s not supposed to laugh at their stupid jokes.

Still, he can’t help turning his head to look at Jason. His face is flushed with laughter, and his gaze cuts to Alex. His smile vanishes, and he looks... _hopeful_? Alex turns around quickly again, and stares at his open textbook.

He doesn’t look at Jason again for the rest of class.

After geography Alex has a study period. He’s supposed to meet Harriet in the library. He goes to his locker first. He’s going through it looking for his math book when he becomes aware of a group of kids behind him.

Alex used to be able to tell who kids were by their scent. Now, in situations like this, all he can smell is his own rising panic. He closes his locker door and turns around.

Sean and Charlie, and a bunch of other kids.

“Hey, Alex,” Sean says.

“Hey.” Alex fights the urge to hug his math book to his chest.

“It’s my birthday next weekend.”

Alex nods slightly.

Sean’s eyes are bright, and his mouth is twitching like he can hardly contain his glee. “You wanna come to my party?”

It’s a trap. Alex knows it. He also knows there’s no way to avoid it. “I don’t think, um... I don’t think...”

“I wasn’t _inviting_ you,” Sean announces, loud enough for everyone in the corridor to hear. “I just wanted to know how much you wanted to come!”

Alex nods stupidly. His eyes sting and his breath hitches.  

_Please go away now. Please go away._

“Aw,” Charlie says. “Is little Awex going to cwy?”

Alex hates this. He knows why they don’t want to be his friends anymore, but why can’t they just leave him alone? He hates that they can make him feel this way, and all he can do is stand here and let it happen.

“Hey, you guys.”

Alex looks up sharply as Jason appears. He elbows his way through the boys, and, weirdly, holds out a pen to Alex.

“You dropped this in class.”

Alex has never seen that pen before in his life. He reaches out and takes it anyway, and nods again because he doesn’t trust himself to speak.

“What are you guys talking about?” Jason asks the others, with his wide, friendly grin.

The boys shrug and mumble, and, casting glances back, finally move off down the corridor.

When Alex looks up again, Jason isn’t smiling anymore.

“Those guys are assholes,” he says. “Are you okay?”

Alex shoves his pen back toward him. “I don’t need your help.”

Jason’s face falls.

“I don’t know what you want, but I don’t need anything from you,” Alex rasps out. He blinks, and hates that he can feel the tears sliding down his cheeks. He hates that it’s not just because Sean and Charlie and the others were picking on him, but also because Jason had to save him. He hates that he’s so pathetic that he needs saving.

“I just...” Jason frowns. “I just want to be your friend.”

“No, you don’t,” Alex says, and pushes past him.

There’s nothing wrong with Jason. Why would he want to be Alex’s friend?

 

***

 

After school, Alex sits in the parking lot and waits for Cora and Malia. At least, he sits there until he sees Sean and Charlie walking toward him, and then he picks up his backpack and starts to run. He can hear them laughing at him.

It’s not fair.

They used to be his friends.

He runs for a block or two, then slows when he realizes they aren’t following him. He scrubs at his eyes as he walks, furious at himself for his tears. He picks up his pace again, trying to get some distance between him and the school. He doesn’t even see Cora’s car until it’s pulling in right beside him.

“Hey!” Malia leans out of the passenger window. “You’re supposed to wait at the school, dumbass!”

Alex doesn’t answer. Just wrenches the back door open and flings his backpack onto the seat, where it lands on an outraged Matty. Alex clambers in after it, and sits there breathing heavily, hands shaking, determined not to cry again.

The girls are silent for a long moment.

“Alex?” Cora asks quietly.

“’m fine.” He stares fixedly at his shoes. “Just drive.”

“Alex?” Cora asks again. “Did something happen?”

Alex shakes his head.

Matty sighs loudly. “Sean and a bunch of the others were mean to him again. I wasn’t even _there_ , and I heard all about it!”

Malia leans back between the seats and punches Matty.

He yelps. “What was that for?”

“For being a little asshole,” Malia tells him, barely suppressing a growl. “Are you okay, Alex?”

“Fine,” he bites out. “Can we just go, please?”

Matty mutters under his breath the whole way home.

 

***

 

After dinner, his mom comes up to his room. “Alex?”

Talia Hale is his pack alpha. She’s also the Alpha of Beacon Hills. But here, in the safe darkness of his room, she’s just his mom. She sighs when she sits down on his bed, and the mattress dips. Alex keeps his back to her, curled up in a ball. He closes his eyes as she cards her fingers through his hair.

“Oh, baby,” she says softly.

Alex’s eyes sting. Talia Hale has mediated between pack disputes that have lasted for generations. She’s one of the most powerful and respected alphas on the west coast. Alex knows she hates to feel helpless, and he hates that it’s his fault for being a problem she doesn’t know how to fix.

“Maybe I can go to a different school,” he mumbles. “Maybe somewhere new, where nobody knows me. Like a boarding school. You could send me away and...” He can’t finish the thought.

His mom rubs his scalp. “Alex, your wolf is a part of you. You can’t suppress her.”

He knows that. He’s _tried_. And even if he could force himself to act like a boy around the full moon, to not wear pretty clothes and paint his nails, the second he shifted into his wolf form everyone would see the truth anyway. It’s not fair that he can’t hide this.

He thinks of the kit downstairs in the basement, and it’s horrible, but Alex _envies_ him. So he can’t talk, and he was covered in mites and lice when Derek and Cora found him, and he was hurt and hungry and cold, but Alex is jealous of him. Why can’t he be lost in the wilderness? Why can’t he live someplace where there are no people around to make him hate himself like this?

Alex hears the soft tread of footsteps in the hall, and then another sigh. He knows without opening his eyes that it’s his dad. His scent is warm and comforting and familiar. He smells of sawdust and earth and home.

James settles on the edge of the bed beside Talia, and reaches out and takes Alex’s hand. Alex keeps his eyes squeezed shut.

“Why do I have to be like this?” he whispers, his throat aching.

Neither of his parents have an answer to that question.

His dad holds his hand, and his mom rubs circles on his back until he falls asleep at last.

 

***

 

Alex likes weekends. He likes any day he doesn’t have to go to school. It’s getting closer to full moon, and when he gets out of bed in the morning, yawning and stretching, he goes to his dresser and pulls open the top drawer. He rattles around in it until he finds the nail polish he’s after, and sits cross-legged on his bed while he applies it.

His wolf is pleased with the color. She preens a little as he works.

Alex leaves the polish on until lunchtime. Then, frowning, he heads upstairs again to clean it off. The smell of the remover makes his nose twitch, and his wolf unhappy.

Afterward, Alex needs the bathroom. The worst part about living in a house with so many pack members is that there aren’t enough bathrooms. Alex tries the one downstairs first, then the one that’s been commandeered by the girls, and then, finally, shifting his weight from foot to foot, he tries the smallest bathroom close to Derek’s room, which now has a sign taped to the door: _Private. Do not use._

He raps on the door. “Derek?”

“I’m busy, Alex!” Derek calls back from the other side of the door.

Alex huffs. “I need a bathroom and all the others are full!”

“All of them?”

Alex bounces on his feet. “Yeeeesss!”

There’s a moment of silence, then: “Come in then.”

Alex opens the door. This is the first time he’s had a close look at the kit. The kit is skinny and pale and has big, dark eyes. He’s pressed up against Derek’s back. He looks like he’s trying to hide and preparing to attack at the same time.

“H-hey,” Alex manages. “Thanks.”

He just wants to use the toilet and get out. The kit might be a human, and he might not have claws and fangs, but he’s glaring at Alex like he could still really hurt him, and Alex doesn’t exactly want to give him the opportunity.

“Just a second,” Derek says. He reaches out and pulls Alex into a hug. “I’m gonna let him see me scent you, okay?”

“I really need to pee, Der!” Alex doesn’t want to be part of Derek’s attempts to socialize the kit. Not when he suspects his part involves pain. Still, it’s impossible to fight when Derek rests his face in the crook of his neck and nuzzles there. Derek’s warm and strong, and Alex feels safe in his embrace, despite the aggrieved, grumbling kit standing right there. Alex lifts his chin so Derek can scent him better.

Derek’s breath is warm against his skin. “What color?”

“What?”

“Your nail polish.”

Alex flushes and swallows. “Kind of a candy pink.”

Derek hugs him a little tighter. “Pretty. You should leave it on next time.”

Alex shrugs and wrinkles his nose, then stills suddenly as the kit growls softly. “Der?”

“He’s okay,” Derek says in a soft voice. “He’s gotta learn to share.”

Alex ignores the pang he feels at that. He knows the kit needs Derek right now. He’s the only one of them that he’ll let close, but Alex misses talking to Derek. Even when he can never get the courage up to talk about anything that matters, just being close to Derek makes him feel good. Derek is one of the few people in the world who makes Alex feel like his skin almost fits right.

He huffs. “Great. I’ll just wait for him to rip my throat out, shall I?”

“He’s squishy and breakable,” Derek says with a laugh, “and he doesn’t have fangs. You’re a wolf, Alex.”

“Easy for you to say,” Alex mutters. “He’s looking at me like he’s going to murder me in my sleep.”

Still, he lets Derek take his hand and draw his arm out straight. He tenses a little when Derek offers his hand toward the kit, but he knows Derek won’t let the kit hurt him. The kit snuffles at Alex’s fingers, and then his wrist, and lets out a little questioning growl.

“This is Alex,” Derek tells him. “Pack.”

The kit snuffs Alex’s fingers again, then shrinks back in behind Derek and makes a bunch of weird chattering noises.

“Can I pee now?” Alex asks. “Please?”

Derek tugs the kit toward the door. “Go for it.”

Alex shuts the door very firmly after them.

_Finally._

 

***

 

That night, Alex pores over the fashion magazine again and wishes he had clothes like that to wear. Sometimes he borrows stuff off Cora or Malia, but they don’t like the same clothes that he does. Laura has prettier stuff, but her clothes fit him even worse than Cora’s or Malia’s. Laura is a C cup. Alex knows, because once he took one of her bras out of the laundry and tried it on.

He flips the pages of the magazine.

He’s always known his wolf was female. From the time he was a kid, he knew it. But it didn’t matter so much until puberty hit and the wolf started getting urges, when suddenly she didn’t _fit_. Alex knows his wolf is as unhappy to be caught inside a male as he is to have her there.

There’s an old story his Uncle Peter told him once, about a boy who had two wolves inside him, fighting. And one was good and kind and noble and brave, and the other one was angry and scared and vicious and mean. And the boy asked his grandfather which of the wolves would win the battle inside him, and his grandfather said, “It depends which one you feed.”

Alex doesn’t know how to feed his wolf without starving himself.

He doesn’t know how to feed himself without starving the wolf.

He doesn’t know which one of them is going to win.

“Sometimes,” his Uncle Peter had said, “the only way to survive is to not fight the battle at all.”

Except Alex doesn’t know how to do that either.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

(13)

 

 

  

Words are powerful.

One night, Derek says to Alex: “I think you’re perfect. I think that if sometimes you feel like you’re a boy and sometimes you feel like you’re a girl, that’s okay. That’s who you are. And I love every part of you.”

Words are powerful.

Alex already knows how much they can hurt. Until then though, he didn’t know how much they could heal.

 

***

 

Running with the pack is the only time the wolf feels free. She’s happy like this. She yips excitedly like a pup, and James presses his muzzle into her ribs to tease her. She bounces away from him, playful, winding herself in circles until Talia growls and clamps her jaws gently over her nose to remind her to settle down.

 _She can’t she can’t she can’t_.

She’s too happy, and it’s such a strange thing to feel this weightlessness, this buoyancy. She runs with her parents, with her brothers and her sisters and her aunts and uncles and cousins until she’s too exhausted to run anymore and collapses in a heap in a pile of leaves.

Then, like she’s still a pup instead of a long-limbed half-grown thing, James latches his jaws around her scruff and carries her all the way back to the house.

 

***

  

Alex spends more time with Derek and the kit. The kit is called Stiles now. He’s sort of remembering how to be a human. He has a major freak out when he discovers, thanks to Malia’s temper, that they’re all wolves. It takes a long time for Derek to coax him out of his room again.

He learns a little more every day, and Alex looks forward to coming home from school—and not just for the usual reasons. Stiles doesn’t care when Alex sits and talks to him about stuff. He just listens like he understands, even though Alex isn’t sure he does, and holds his hands out so that Alex can paint his nails too.

School is the same as always. It’s okay, most of the time, and then some of the time it’s horrible. He doesn’t understand exactly why he just stands there and lets the boys who used to be his friends tear him into pieces like they do, every word carefully chosen to rip a new wound into him. He walks with his head down and his shoulders hunched.

Jason asks him a few times if he wants to shoot hoops with him again, and Alex shakes his head every time. Jason just doesn’t get it. He might not be mean, but he’s an idiot. If he’s friends with Alex, the others will turn on him, and eventually Jason will blame Alex for that. And, worse, if Alex is friends with Jason…well, a kid like him has no right to be friends with a popular kid. He’s a freak. He knows his place, and if he tries to change things, to shift into the same orbit as the popular kids, they’ll make it worse for him. Alex understands the hierarchy at school as well as he understands his own pack hierarchy. It’s instinctive.

At home he sometimes wears the pretty dresses Derek ordered him online. At school, even on the days when the moon is closest to being full, he wears jeans and a hoodie. His wolf hates it. She hates him. They both hate when the full moon falls in the middle of the week.

It’s a Wednesday afternoon, and Alex needs the bathroom. He feels sick to the stomach when he pushes open the door to the boys’ bathroom.

_He’s not a boy. He’s not a boy. He’s not a boy._

He uses a stall instead of the urinals. He sits down and listens to the sounds of other kids coming in and then leaving again: the banging on the door, the squeak of trainers on tiles, the blast of water in the sinks.

He closes his eyes for a moment, and feels the pull of the moon. His wolf stretches, pushing close to his skin. She’s restless and unsettled. She wants it to be night. She wants to run with her pack.

Alex doesn’t leave the bathroom for a long time. He has to wait for everyone else to leave before he can, in case they see there’s a _girl_ in the boys’ room. Except he knows that’s not what they’ll see at all. Just because he feels it so acutely doesn’t mean anyone else will even notice. Sometimes he wishes that when he’s a girl he could just _pretend_ to be a boy. That’s what Matty said once: _“Why don’t you just pretend you don’t think you’re a girl?”_

Words hurt.

They’d been walking in the Preserve with Derek. Derek had taken Matty by the hand. _“Matty, why don’t you pretend you don’t think you’re a wolf?”_

 _“But I_ am _a wolf!”_

_“And today Alex is a girl.”_

Alex wishes it were that simple. He waits until there’s a break in traffic in the bathroom, and slips outside again. He’s running late for his next class, which is gym. Alex hates gym when he’s a girl. He hates stripping down in front of the boys. So being late is probably a good thing. He’ll have the locker room to himself.

He hears the squeak of shoes on the court and the sound of balls slamming against the floor before he even reaches the doors to the gym.

Fucking dodge ball.

No.

No way is he playing dodge ball in a class he shares with Sean and Charlie. He gets a pain in his stomach just thinking about it. Alex pauses with his shaking hand against the doors.

Maybe he can go to the nurse’s office and say he doesn’t feel well, and they’ll call his mom to come and get him. His mom won’t mind.

Alex steps away from the doors, and, just in case someone comes out and sees him still hanging around, actually runs until he turns the corner at the end of the hallway. There’s a group of kids sticking up posters for the dance. Alex slows his pace and tries to remember to look sick as he passes them.

“Alex?”

His head jerks up. Jason has blue paint on his shirt, and on his cheek as well.

“Are you okay?”

Alex shrugs. “I’m going to the nurse.”

“Oh.” Jason lets go of the poster he was holding against the wall, and the girl beside him holding the tape squeals as the poster crumples to the floor. Jason doesn’t even seem to notice her trauma. “I’ll walk with you. In case you need to barf or something.”

Alex isn’t sure how that’ll help, even if he wasn’t just pretending to be sick, but arguing seems pointless. He shrugs again, and Jason falls into step beside him.

It’s weird, and it’s awkward, and Alex’s wolf rumbles like she’s pleased, even though Alex actually does feel a bit sick now.

Jason must notice the sudden change in his scent. “Do you want me to carry your bag or anything?”

Alex tightens his grip on the straps of his backpack. Then, because he can’t think of anything else to say, he blurts out: “You have paint on your cheek.”

Jason pulls his sleeve down and scrubs at the wrong cheek.

Alex fixes his gaze on the floor.

The walk to the nurse’s office seems interminable.

After a while, Jason says, “Are you really sick?”

Alex shoots him a narrow look.

Jason wrinkles his nose. It’s cute, and makes Alex’s stomach feel unsettled. Then Jason shrugs. “Because if you’re not, like if you just want to skip class, we can skip.”

“I don’t skip class,” Alex says, his heart thumping.

“Yeah, but it’s like _gym_ ,” Jason says. “It’s not like you’re learning anything.”

Alex can’t stop his quick smile. “Oh.” Then he screws up all his courage and lets his restless wolf decide for him. “Okay.”

It’s not until they’re sneaking out that it occurs to him that Jason knows his schedule.

 

***

 

Jason has eight dollars. Alex has three. They pool their resources and get milkshakes and fries from the diner. Jason goes in and orders, while Alex lurks outside and panics that they’re going to get arrested or something for skipping school. Alex _never_ skips school. Still, he can’t bring himself to regret it. Not yet.

Later, probably, because something’s bound to go wrong. But not yet. He wants to hold onto this feeling of freedom for as long as he can.

Jason appears with their order, and they head to the park.

“My mom is going to kill me,” Alex tells him as they sit on the swings.

Jason holds out the carton of fries so Alex can grab some. “Yeah. She’s like the Alpha, right? I mean, my dad is an alpha, but he’s not _the_ Alpha. Your mom is kind of scary.”

He doesn’t say it in a mean way though, so Alex smiles. “She kind of is.”

He knows he won’t really be in much trouble though. Patrick, his oldest brother, kind of blazed the trail for the rest of them. Even Cora and Malia don’t get into half the trouble Patrick did. He once heard his dad say that frankly, as long as all the kids made it to adulthood without criminal records, he’d count it a success. Alex still isn’t sure how much of it was a joke.

Jason’s trainers dig furrows in the dirt underneath his swing. “So how come you don’t want to shoot hoops with me anyway?”

“Um.” Alex slurps on his milkshake. “I’m, um, pretty bad at basketball?”

“You’re okay.” Jason can’t quite meet his gaze. “We could do something else if you wanted. Like you could come to my place and play video games?”

Alex doesn’t know how to answer that, so he doesn’t. The last time someone invited him to their place it was Charlie, in the note. He hunches over a little instead.

“Um,” Jason says after a while. “So, um, it must be nice to live in the Preserve. Like you have lots of room to run and stuff when you shift.”

“Yeah.” Alex’s voice wavers a little on that short word. “I guess.”

“My dad says that Alpha Hale used to invite other packs to run in the Preserve and it was really good,” Jason volunteers.

“She did?” Alex frowns. “I don’t remember—”

He feels suddenly cold. Suddenly sick. If it’s true, it must be because of him. Because of _her_. The wolf whines inside him.

“Yeah.” The chains on the swing squeal as Jason turns toward him. “Hey, are you okay? Like, you’re not actually sick?”

Alex stares straight ahead. He’s afraid that if he blinks his vision will swim with tears. “I think I need to go home now.”

He stands up.

“Alex! Alex, wait!” Jason reaches out and grabs his wrist.

Alex feels a rush of panic that threatens to drown him. This is how it starts. This is how it _always_ starts. He’s let Jason lure him away from school, and now he’s going to get hurt. He feels like he can hardly summon up enough breath to fill his lungs, let alone yell, but the words burst out: “Don’t touch me!”

Jason looks shocked. He drops Alex’s wrist, and holds both his hands up, palms facing out, like Alex is holding a gun on him or something. “I’m sorry!”

Alex watches as his milkshake, dropped in his panic, spills in strawberry waves all over the dirt. His hands are shaking. He curls his fingers into loose fists, and channels all of his fear into anger. “This is why we can’t be friends!”

“Why?” Jason’s blue eyes are wide. “What did I do?”

The chokes sound that escapes Alex is too bitter to be a laugh. “You didn’t do anything! I did, okay? I did!”

Jason looked almost scared. “I just wanted to be your friend.”

“Why?” Alex demands.

“Because I like you,” Jason says in a small voice.

Alex breathes heavily. He can feel his claws itching to break free, his fangs ready to drop. _Her_ claws, _her_ fangs, the wolf so close to the surface now. He’s _angry_. _She_ is. Everything made sense until Jason came along. Alex was following the _rules_. He scowls at Jason. He still has blue paint on his cheek. “You don’t even know what you’re talking about. You’re stupid. You’re _stupid_!”

He remembers too late that words can hurt. The look on Jason’s face must be the same one that Sean and Charlie see on Alex’s all the time.

Alex picks up his backpack and runs away.

 

***

 

It’s too early to go home, so Alex makes it as far as the Preserve before he stops. If he gets too close to the house, his mom will be able to catch his scent. He sits down in the cover of the trees and waits. He draws his legs up and hugs his knees, and presses his forehead against them tightly. He struggles to control his breathing.

His wolf whines to go home. She’s upset. She wants to strip out of these ugly boy clothes and put on something that makes her feel right. She wants the embrace of her alpha, her _mom_. She wants Derek.

Alex is tired of fighting her, of suppressing her all day at school and then with Jason. He’s tired of everything.

He climbs to his feet again, and trudges toward home.

“Mom,” he says as the house comes into view. His voice is hardly louder than a whisper, but she’ll hear him soon. “Mom?”

It’s not his mom who comes, or his dad, or Derek.

It’s Uncle Peter.

His face is marked with crisscrosses and his usually immaculate hair is standing up in places. His clothes are rumpled. He’s been sleeping in the hammock again. He catches sight of Alex, and his eyes flash gold and then he’s hurrying toward him.

“Oh, Alex,” he sighs, and folds him into an embrace. He smells of aftershave and books and whiskey, with a hint of cigarette smoke. Talia is going to kill him if he’s been smoking in the house again. “Rough day, pup?”

Alex nods against his chest, inhaling deeply and nuzzling a little to catch his scent.

“Let’s get you inside.”

Alex nods again.

He doesn’t know what Peter tells his mom, but he doesn’t get in any trouble for skipping school. 

 

***

 

“Food,” Stiles says one morning at breakfast, and beams proudly when everyone stares. “Food!”

“He’s _talking_!” Matty screeches.

 _Food_ is his favorite word, followed by _Derek_ , and _no_. It’s kind of amazing how much he can communicate with just a couple of words and a hell of a lot of glaring. Alex thinks he probably learned to glare like that from Derek. Derek is a total marshmallow, but you have to get past his scowl to see it.

It’s good to hear Stiles using real words instead of just chattering like a fox. He still does that too, of course. Jacob, Alex’s nephew, is the only one who chatters back. But Jacob’s two.

One night Stiles races into Alex’s room and starts going through his drawers.

“Hey,” Alex complains. “Hey, that’s my stuff. You have to _ask_.”

“This,” Stiles says, turning around with a bottle of nail polish.

Alex rolls his eyes. “Fine. Take it. Whatever.”

Stiles doesn’t take it though. He climbs up onto Alex’s bed, shoves the nail polish at him, and splays his hand on Alex’s knee expectantly.

“I’m trying to do my homework,” Alex tells him.

“This!” Stiles insists.

“Fine,” Alex says. “But only because it looks pretty on you.”

Stiles preens.

It’s fun, with Stiles. It takes Alex’s mind off school, and off Jason. Stiles is so enthusiastically happy all the time—except about brushing his teeth, and bedtime, and vegetables instead of cookies—that it’s nice for Alex to be close enough to him to bask in the warmth. To borrow a bit of it and wrap it around him.

It doesn’t last.

Derek goes back to Stanford, and Stiles howls and cries like his whole universe is collapsing. For _hours_.

“I know,” Alex tells him, sitting on the floor beside Derek’s bed. Stiles wedged himself under there a while ago. “I know.”

Stiles cries until he cries himself asleep.

With Derek gone and Stiles inconsolable, it feels like there’s no room for happiness in the house. Stiles’s misery is so big it’s pushed it out of every corner, every nook and cranny it might have hidden in, like a shadow smothering light.

That’s how Alex feels too, most days.

 


	4. Chapter 4

(13)

 

Somehow, despite himself, Alex finds himself heading toward the basketball court on Thursday after school. He knows it’s not a day the team practices, so maybe it will be totally empty, or maybe—

Jason’s shooting hoops by himself. He’s wearing his basketball uniform. His baggy shorts flap around his legs. His face and arms shine with sweat, like he’s been doing this for a while. He’s wearing a frown on his face as he slams the ball into the floor.

 _Smack smack smack_.

Alex lets the door swing shut behind him, but it’s not the noise that attracts Jason’s attention. He’s already looking at Alex by the time the door closes with a dull sound. Of course he is. Of course he’s already got all the enhanced werewolf senses that really start to make themselves felt around puberty. Jason can probably scent out a single drop of sweat in a bucket of bleach, whereas Alex wouldn’t be able to track an elephant with a nosebleed through a snowy field. He’s hopeless. It’s not unusual for weres going through puberty though. There’s so many weird hormones coursing through them and all sorts of chemical changes taking place that it kind of messes all the other stuff up for a while. Puberty sucks, but Alex already knew that.

Jason’s probably sailing right through.

Alex shuffles forward.

Jason sets the basketball down and puts his foot on it.

“I’m really sorry,” Alex says. If he doesn’t get the words out now, he knows he won’t ever find the courage. “I’m sorry I called you stupid the other day.”

Jason wrinkles his nose.

“So, um, yeah,” Alex says. He drops his gaze and looks at the scuffed floor instead. “You’re not stupid.”

Jason doesn’t say anything. Just nudges the basketball with his foot and sends it rolling across the floor. It comes to rest against the toe of Alex’s trainer.

Alex lifts his gaze warily.

“You owe me a game,” Jason tells him.

There’s a stammering refusal on the end of Alex’s tongue, but it’s hollow. It’s got nothing behind it. It’s feather light, as thin and brittle as a dried leaf. It crumbles.  Because Jason has seen the worst of Alex. He’s seen how he gets picked on, and how he cries, and, worst of all, how he turned on Jason, who was just trying to be nice. Jason has seen all of that, and here they are right back where they started, with Jason wanting to shoot some hoops.

He’s as single-minded as Stiles when there are cookies on the line.

Alex shrugs his backpack off, and picks up the ball, and looks up again in time to see Jason’s shy smile.

 

***

 

That’s how it starts.

Every afternoon on days the team doesn’t practice, Alex meets Jason at the court. On days the team does practice, Alex heads home and tells himself he doesn’t miss seeing Jason. They don’t actually play a lot of basketball though, even when they have the court to themselves. Alex thinks that the ball is almost like a stage prop. That as long as they remember to throw it around occasionally, they can pretend that’s all they’re doing here, and it doesn’t have to mean anything apart from that.

Just two guys hanging out and shooting hoops.

Except, as Alex feels himself bending toward the pull of the next full moon, when it’s not two guys anymore.

“Are you okay?” Jason tosses him a water bottle.

Alex catches it against his— _her_ —flat chest. He unscrews the cap and takes a sip. “Yeah.”

Jason sits down beside him on the bleachers. “You’re kinda quiet today.”

Alex can’t stop his mouth twisting up a little. “That’s sort of my thing, Jason.” He wants it to sound a little sarcastic and a lot self-depreciating, but somehow his voices hitches a little bit on Jason’s name, it comes out all weird and breathy.

Jason makes a sound kind of like a laugh, and kind of not.

They’re both being pretty weird today. Alex knows exactly what his problem is, but he’s got no idea what’s going on with Jason. He watches as Jason scratches his knee, then pulls his gaze away again and squeezes the plastic bottle so it makes popping sounds.

“Um,” Jason says, but he’s apparently got no follow-up because he just clamps his mouth shut again.

“Did you do your geography homework yet?” Alex asks him, just to change the subject. Whatever the hell the subject is. Just to steer the conversation toward something bland, he guesses.  

Jason looks at him like he’s crazy. “We only got it this morning.”

Oh, right. Jason and his friends don’t do their homework at lunch. They’re too busy doing fun stuff, probably.

“Oh, yeah,” Alex says, like he forgot or something. It’s lame.

“So, I’m on the dance committee,” Jason says.

“Yeah.”

“It’s in a few weeks,” Jason says. “I haven’t asked anyone yet.”

Alex nods and tries to look interested.

Jason clamps his mouth shut again. Then he stretches his legs out. “I can’t wait to shift tonight. It’s like my bones ache or something, you know?”

“Yeah.” Alex chews his lip for a moment. “My brother Derek used to get really bad pains when he was like our age, but he outgrew them. He had to rub this stinky liniment on his legs every month. It was gross.”

“Yeah, my dad says I’ll outgrow it.” Jason tugs at a loose thread in the hem of his shirt. “Derek’s your brother at Stanford, right?”

“Yeah.” Alex misses him. “He’s pretty cool.”

“Yeah!” Jason’s face brightens. “He’s got that awesome car, right? I’ve seen it around town.”

“The Camaro,” Alex says. “It’s like his favorite thing.” Well, apart from Stiles, but Stiles is a secret. “Our little brother Matty once threw up in it, and I thought Derek was going to wolf out right there!”

“Yeah, that’s a really cool car,” Jason says. “Your whole family seems like they’re pretty cool.”

Alex shrugs. “I guess.”

“Like, um, like they don’t care that you’re…” Jason trails off.

Alex freezes. He can’t breathe. He feels like he’s about to plunge into a cold lake, and shatter the smooth surface into pieces.

“I mean…” Jason is still talking. Why is he still talking? “I mean, it sucks that people are mean to you. So like, I guess, it’s good that your family is cool.”

Alex can feel himself falling. His skin feels too hot, and then suddenly too cold. There’s a hard knot in his stomach. And Jason is _still_ talking.

“Like, you’re my friend, right? And, um, none of that stuff matters to me either. Because we’re friends, aren’t we?” He trails off again as though he’s suddenly noticed Alex isn’t saying anything. “Alex?”

The last time Alex screwed his courage to tell someone about this, it was Sean. He doesn’t think he can do this again. Except Jason already _knows_ , and he’s still sitting here.

Alex clears his throat. “It’s, um, my wolf. My wolf is a girl.”

Jason knows—the whole school knows—but he nods, wide-eyed, like this is the first time he’s hearing it. And it is, Alex guesses. So far all he’s heard are rumors, and Alex doesn’t even want to imagine how exaggerated they are. How sick.

“So, um, so around full moon when the wolf is strongest, I feel like…” He inhales. “I mean, I _am_ a girl.”

“Like right now?” Jason asks in a soft voice.

“Yeah.” Alex hugs his arms over his flat chest. Jason must think he’s crazy.

“Oh.” Jason leans toward him slightly, and bumps their shoulders together. The gesture is so _normal_ that Alex almost bursts into tears of relief. “Is that why you get quiet and stuff?”

“Yeah.” Alex can’t met his gaze. “I don’t feel right. I don’t fit.” He makes a vague gesture at his body. “She doesn’t like this.”

“This one time, my sister Melanie tried to go vegan, and her wolf freaked out,” Jason says. Then he makes a small sound of disgust. “Sorry, that’s not like the same thing at all. I’m stupid.”

Alex smiles a little despite himself. “You’re not stupid.”

“Sometimes I am.” Jason bumps his shoulder again.

They sit in silence for a while.

It’s weird.

Weird but good.

Jason isn’t freaking out…but then Alex hasn’t told him _everything_. Maybe it’s some sort of sick curiosity, but he has to know. This thing with Jason feels so good that some perverse part of Alex has to test it, to see if it will break.

“At home, I wear dresses.” As soon as the words are out he regrets them, but Jason doesn’t look grossed out or anything. He doesn’t look at Alex like he’s a freak.

“Oh,” is all he says. And then: “That’s cool.”

Alex’s eyebrows shoot up.

Jason turns bright red. “I mean, yeah, I mean you’re cool. You have to be who you are, my mom says. Like being true to yourself? It’s cool you’re doing that.”

Alex thinks he’s said _cool_ so much that the word is starting to lose all meaning. He’s starting to sound like one of those outdated educational videos they sometimes make them watch in health class, where actors who are like thirty try too hard to sound like teenagers, and it’s embarrassing to watch.

“Can I ask you something?” Jason asks. “About your wolf?”

Alex tries not to shrink away. “I guess.”

“What color is she?” Jason asks eagerly.

Alex almost laughs with relief, because Jason didn’t ask about what it’s like to be a female, to not have a dick when he’s shifted. “Gray. She’s gray. But really light.” He shares a smile with Jason. “What about yours?”

“Standard mutt brown,” Jason grins.

Alex doesn’t think there’s anything standard about Jason Cormack.

Nothing standard at all.

 

***

 

Alex talks to Derek a bit on Skype. He tries to get Stiles involved as well, but that mostly ends badly. Stiles is hopeless at sitting still. The first time they do it, he keeps trying to look behind the screen to see where Derek’s hiding. Then, after he’s figured out Derek’s not really there, he runs away and refuses to try again the next time.

“He misses you, that’s all,” Alex tells Derek staunchly, because he can see how upset Derek is. “He’s learning lots more words, and he’s really smart, I think. Mark’s trying to teach him reading and stuff.”

It’s been kind of hit and miss so far, but Alex leaves that part out.

Derek looks a little bit lost, and it’s hard not to feel jealous about that. Alex knows that Derek misses that Stiles needs him, but he doesn’t know how to tell Derek that Stiles isn’t the only one who needs him. Derek might be sad that Stiles is outgrowing him, but it also feels like Derek has outgrown Alex, and it’s not fair to think that, but Alex misses when he was the one Derek worried about the most.

Derek always asks about Stiles first.

It would be much easier to nurture that hot bloom of jealousy that flares in his chest if Stiles was actually horrible or something, but he’s not. He’s less boisterous without Derek around, a little more cautious, but with Derek gone suddenly Alex has been promoted to Stiles’s favorite Hale. He sits with Alex every afternoon while Alex does his homework or studies. Stiles paints or flips through picture books. It’s sort of their thing.

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that having Stiles here is risky. If he’s found, he could be taken away. There are no laws against hiding humans or anything, since humans are meant to be extinct, but Talia says that wouldn’t matter to the government. And nobody wants Stiles to be taken away, even if the government wouldn’t mean to be cruel to him. Taking him away would be cruel in itself. Stiles doesn’t need to be studied and examined and locked away. He needs a pack. He needs a _family_.

Everyone does.

 

***

 

Uncle Peter comes home from Stanford one weekend, without Derek. Uncle Peter teaches art history. He comes bearing presents for all the kids, even Stiles. He brings Stiles a load of new art supplies, since art is kind of their thing. He brings Alex a sampler of eyeshadows and eyeliners, in soft autumnal shades, and gives it to him in the privacy of his room.

“If you don’t like it, or the colors are terrible, we can exchange it for something you want,” he says.

Alex is a little overwhelmed. He flushes. “No, I _like_ it, just maybe I won’t wear it?” He chews his lip anxiously.

“Whatever you want, pup,” Peter says, smiling and reaching out to tousle his hair.

Alex hides the cosmetics at the bottom of his sock drawer, but he thinks about them a lot. A part of him loves the idea of trying them, but another part of him isn’t sure. And while he wants to say it’s just the wolf that wants to look pretty, maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’s the boy too.

It’s too complicated to think about for long, so Alex doesn’t. But every few days he opens the compact and looks at the eyeshadows and feels good knowing that they’re there, just in case.

 

***

 

They’re playing basketball when Jason tries to kiss him.

To _kiss_ him.

 _Alex_.

Alex should have known that Jason was off his game when he actually managed to get the ball. And then Jason was blocking him, and then they were kind of jostling up against each other, and then, before Alex even knew what was happening, Jason’s lips were pressing against his.

Alex dropped the ball and ran.

He’s still running when he realizes he’s left his backpack in the gym.

With Jason.

Alex stops and leans against a row of lockers, panting for breath.

He’s a _boy_. Today he’s a boy. The possibility that Jason would even try and do something like that never even crossed his mind. Alex just wanted to kill some time and talk some shit, and maybe even get the ball through the hoop at some point.

Jason’s his _buddy_.

It feels weird.

Really, really weird.

Not _bad_.

But definitely weird.

By the time Alex sneaks back to the gym, Jason is gone.

 

***

 

“Alex?” Stiles is leaning in his doorway.

“What?”

“Play chickens?”

“Mom says you’re not allowed near the chickens,” Alex reminds him. “You _torment_ them.”

Stiles huffs, then tilts his head on his side. “Cookies?”

Alex thinks about that for a moment, then sets his laptop aside. “Yeah, let’s get some cookies.”

He’s _earned_ a cookie after the day he’s had.

They go downstairs to the kitchen. Alex takes a cookie from the jar. Stiles takes four.

In the end, Alex totally caves and sits on the porch and watches, laughing, as Stiles tries to force the indignant chickens to balance on his shoulders. Still, at least he’s given up trying to eat them.

That’s progress, right?

“Stiles?” he asks when Stiles finally leaves the chicken pen and collapses next to him on the porch.

“Mmm?” Stiles threads a grubby feather through his splayed fingers.

“I think I like a boy.”

“I like a boy.” Stiles jabs Alex in the chest with the pointy end of the feather.

“Not like us,” Alex says, squirming a little. It tickles. “In a different way.”

“Oh,” Stiles says, and draws his hand back. “Like on TV?”

Alex remembers the movie they watched last night, with people kissing. “Yeah, like that.”

Stiles seems to ponder that for a long time.

“I don’t really know what it means,” Alex says at last.

Stiles presents him with his feather. “Me neither.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

(13)

 

“Hey, Alex,” Jason says the next day. He’s waiting outside Alex’s classroom when Mr. Linwood dismisses everyone for lunch. His face is kind of red, and he’s wearing the gray shirt that makes his eyes look more blue than usual.

“Hey,” Alex says, his mouth dry.

“Want to have lunch with me?” Jason says. “Like, with my other friends?”

“No,” Alex says.

It’s not just that he’s afraid of the repercussions for himself—weird, freaky Alex Hale trying to hang out with the cool kids—but he doesn’t want the kids who’ve had his back for the past few months to feel like he’s ditching them.

“Okay,” Jason says, but his face falls a bit. “Is this about yesterday?”

“No.” Alex shuts up and waits as a group of girls walk past. “I don’t know what to think about that yet.”

“Oh,” Jason says, and shifts his weight from foot to foot. “Are we gonna hang out this afternoon?”

Alex shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“Um,” Jason says, and nods. “Do you maybe want to hang out with me sometimes not at school? Like on a weekend or something?”

“Um,” Alex says, and fights the urge to squirm. “Okay, I guess?”

 

***

 

Alex has a kind of boyfriend, maybe.

Or maybe just a friend.

He doesn’t really know.

It’s pretty confusing.

When Derek comes back from Stanford, Stiles is _pissed_. Like really pissed, but it doesn’t last. It’s like a summer storm that builds and crashes quickly, and leaves everything smelling fresh and clean afterward. Then Stiles attaches himself to Derek’s side again, and it’s like the sun comes out, and the whole pack knows that Derek won’t be going back to Stanford for a while, if at all.

It’s different now, between them, and Alex understands for the first time why Derek had to leave. If he hadn’t, they wouldn’t be able to look at each other like they’re seeing something new. Alex wishes there was some place he could go, so that he could wait there a while and then come back and see the look on Jason’s’ face. Maybe then he’d know if Jason was his buddy, or if he was something else. Or maybe—an insidious thought that comes to Alex in the middle of the night as he tries to sleep—Jason just wants someone to mess around with who is so much of a loser that he’ll agree to whatever he asks. In the end Alex pushes the thought away, and not because he thinks he’s better than that, but because Jason is.

He tells Derek a little about Jason. Not much, but he knows Derek can see how big a thing this is for him, how good it is, but also how scary. Derek says that maybe he should invite Jason to a movie or something. He offers to chaperone and everything.

Alex doesn’t know if it’s a good idea or not. He doesn’t know if Jason is his friend, or his boyfriend. He doesn’t know which one of those things he _wants_ Jason to be so, like always, he pulls back. He doesn’t meet Jason at the court for a few days. He doesn’t look at him in geography. He starts hiding out in the library to eat his lunch again.

Alex shoves Jason to the back of his mind with all the other stuff he doesn’t want to think about right now. Or maybe ever. Whenever people tell him that things will get better, and he’ll figure it all out as he grows, Alex’s stomach twists up. He wants things to be better _now_. He wants to feel like he fits in his own skin, just like everyone else. He doesn’t want to have to keep going through hell every single day at school just to learn some giant cosmic lesson about accepting himself. What about the other kids? Why doesn’t anyone tell them to accept _him_?

Or even just ignore him?

He’d be totally okay with it if they just ignored him.

Sometimes he wishes that some other kid would move to the school, some other kid who was even more of a freak than him. Then he wouldn’t be so much of a target. Except, for the life of him, Alex can’t think of anyone who’d be more of a freak. He sees the way his friends sometimes look at him, like they’re secretly grateful he’s there to take the heat off them. Sometimes Alex wishes he could resent them for that, but he can’t. If some kid worse off than him turned up, Alex would throw him a damn party.

He throws Stiles a party instead. Stiles has been with them for six months now, so he’s probably due a birthday, right? And Stiles is so excited by the idea that it takes Alex’s mind off everything for a while. Right up until Jason corners him in the library one lunchtime and invites him to come and play video games at his place.

“This weekend?” Alex asks. “I can’t.”

Jason frowns a little. “You always say that.”

Alex’s heart pounds a little faster. “I mean, I really can’t. It’s my…my friend’s birthday.”

It sounds like a lie. Of course it does.

“Which friend?” Jason asks.

“You don’t know him. He doesn’t go to school here.”

“Right,” Jason says. He stares at Alex for a long while, and then shakes his head. “You could just say you don’t want to.”

But Alex _does_ want to. For the first time in months he can actually imagine himself knocking on someone else’s door, and sitting on the floor and playing video games, and eating snacks, and maybe even meeting new people, and it would be scary, but he’d do it. He’d make himself do it.

“I do want to,” he says in a small voice. “But I can’t.”

Jason pulls a book off the shelf, like that’s the only reason he came into the library anyway, and walks away.

 

***

 

Stiles’s party goes well. Stiles is on a sugar high for most of it, then goes weirdly quiet when the pack sings _Happy Birthday_. Maybe he remembers the last time someone sang it to him, when he had his human family and wasn’t a little lost thing yet. A loss like the one Stiles has suffered is terrifying. Alex can’t even begin to imagine what would happen if he didn’t have the pack. Maybe he sometimes likes to imagine living out in the wilderness where he doesn’t have to worry about being relentlessly bullied, but he knows he couldn’t live without his pack either. He needs them.

He tries to believe they’re _all_ he needs.

Jason hasn’t spoken to him in almost two weeks. Alex doesn’t blame him. It was Alex who backed away first, right? He figures that Jason’s probably done with him. It’s okay, really. He’s no worse off than he was before.

Except for hope. He never had that before.

Then, one morning, Jason calls his phone.

Alex doesn’t even know where he got the number. Alex had been given a new phone with a new number after he dropped his old one and it broke—that’s what he told his parents, at least, because he didn’t want them to know that Sean smashed it instead—and only a few people outside the pack have the number.

Alex takes the phone almost warily when Derek thrusts it at him. “Hello?”

“Hey.” Jason exhales heavily, his breath rushing down the phone like the sound of the ocean in a seashell, filling up all the empty places. “It’s Jason.”

Alex pushes his way out of the kitchen door. “Oh, hey.”

Alex sits down on the porch steps and makes a face because he doesn’t know what to say after that. Neither does Jason, apparently.

“Hey,” Jason says again.  

Alex chews his lower lip, and listens to the sound of Jason breathing for a while.

“I think I messed up,” Jason says at last, just when Alex was going to ask if he was still there. “Like, I think when I tried to kiss you, I messed everything up.”

Alex hunches over, hoping that Derek and his mom aren’t still in the kitchen, and that, even if they are, they didn’t hear that. His mom is the _Alpha_. She can hear _everything_. At least that’s what she told all the kids when they were little, so they didn’t get into too much trouble. Alex also believed that thing about the eyes in the back of her head for years.

“You didn’t mess up,” Alex says at last. “I just didn’t get it.”

“Didn’t get what?” Jason sounds nervous.

“I didn’t get why you would want to kiss me?” Alex can feel his face burning.

“Because I like you.”

“Um, okay.” Alex is going to die. This conversation is going to kill him. “But, um, I don’t know what that means. Like, um, the kissing kind of liking. Is it like a boyfriend or a girlfriend thing?”

“Yes,” Jason says.

Alex screws up his face. “No, I mean, do you want a boyfriend or a girlfriend?”

“Oh.” Jason draws a shaky breath that rasps in Alex’s ear. “Like, both?”

“ _Both_ ,” Alex echoes.

“I like you,” Jason says. “So, um, whatever? I mean, when you’re a boy you can be my boyfriend, and when you’re a girl you can be my girlfriend? If you want.”

Alex almost drops the phone, his hands start shaking so much. He opens his mouth to say something—anything—but he’s got nothing.

“Alex?” Jason asks. “Are you still there?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Did I mess up again?”

“No,” Alex says, a little breathless. “Um, can I think about it?”

“Okay.” Jason sounds worried.

“Maybe,” Alex says, feeling a rush of bravado. “Maybe we can go to the movies or something? My brother Derek says he can take us.”

“Okay, yeah.” Jason sounds relieved now, and maybe like he’s smiling? “Yeah, let’s do that.”

 

***

 

The pack has a kind of collective freak out when Alex announces he’s going on a date with Jason. It’s a subdued kind of freak out though, like they’re all trying to keep a lid on it. Alex can see everyone is dying to ask him questions or throw a parade in his honor or something, or, in his mom’s case, cry. Instead they all pretend to be all calm and relaxed like it isn’t a really big deal, even though it _is_. It’s the biggest.

When the weekend rolls around, Alex is having what he thinks of as half-and-half day. The pull of the wolf isn’t unbearable, she’s not clawing at his skin to get out, but she’s restless enough to make her presence known. And they’re going on a date, with a _boy_ , and she wants to look nice.

Alex quietly panics as he goes through his closet.

“What’s a movie?” Stiles asks, sitting on Alex’s bed eating Twizzlers. “Like on TV?”

“Yeah,” Alex says. “But you go to a cinema, and the screen is like as big as a wall. It’s kind of, um…going to the movies with Jason isn’t like watching a movie on the TV with the pack.”

“Jason is the boy you like,” Stiles says, nodding. He falls silent for a moment before he announces, “I would like to go to a movie with Derek.”

Alex drops the jeans he was inspecting. “Oh, Stiles, you can’t.”

Stiles frowns, and holds his hands up like claws. “Because _grr_.”

That’s one way of putting it, yeah. Stiles is human. His scent is unique. He can’t go out in public.

Alex thinks for a moment, then sits on his bed beside Stiles. “But maybe you could have a movie here? I bet Laura would help set it up. Like a proper movie, with just the two of you. With a big screen, instead of the TV. And you could have popcorn and everything!”

“Popcorn!” Stiles is easily convinced.

“I could bring you some from the cinema,” Alex says. That way, he’ll have to go. He won’t be able to back out at the last minute like he wants.

“Yes,” Stiles says. “Derek and popcorn.”

Alex is impressed Derek rates higher than popcorn.

It must be serious.

“It can be a surprise?” Stiles asks hopefully. “A surprise for Derek?”

“Sure,” Alex tells him.

When Derek finally comes to see what’s taking Alex so long to pick an outfit, neither of them mention it.

 

 

***

 

Alex really, really wishes that Derek wasn’t sitting three rows in front of them. He’d promised not to turn around, but _come on_. He’s right there.

Alex feels queasy, and it’s got nothing to do with all the soda he’s drunk. Jason’s fingers are curled through his own, and it feels so nice, but he keeps sending sidelong glances in Alex’s direction, and Alex knows that he wants to _kiss_.

And Derek is right _there_.

Alex takes another slurp of soda, and he’s sure he can see Derek flinch.

Alex’s heart is thumping so hard that he knows Jason can hear it. So can Derek, probably. And so can the guy at the concession stand. And people in the southern hemisphere.

On screen, the boy and the girl kiss, and could this _be_ more awkward? And Jason maybe takes it like a cue or something, because he leans over toward Alex. Alex squeezes his eyes shut a second before Jason’s mouth brushes up against his and—

Huh.

That’s it?

He opens his eyes again to find Jason’s face is still only inches from his, and in the dim flickering light from the screen he looks wide-eyed and worried.

That’s _it_?

Alex tilts his head slightly and lifts his chin to try again. Their noses bump together before they figure it out.

This time it’s nice. Jason’s mouth is soft, and tastes like cherry cola. Alex worries a second about what they’re supposed to do now their mouths are touching, and then he gasps as Jason’s tongue slides briefly against the seam of his lips. That little gasp opens his mouth, and Jason’s tongue touches his.

 _That’s_ it.

The butterflies in Alex’s stomach burst into flight, and he tightens his grip on the armrest to make sure he doesn’t float away. Then, grinning and blushing, he slumps back against his seat.

Jason’s grinning too.

Alex can’t believe they just kissed. With _tongues_.

He’s tingling all over.

They do it three more times before the movie ends.

Alex is so happy that he almost forgets to buy popcorn and candy for Stiles.

They kiss again on Jason’s front doorstep while Derek waits in the car.

“That was really awesome,” Jason says. “I mean, like the movie and everything, not just, you know.”

Alex can’t stop smiling. “Yeah.”

“I really like you, Alex.”

“I really like you too.”

Alex hold onto those words all the way home. He wraps himself in them, plays them over and over in his head, and breathes them in deep. He can’t stop smiling, or blushing.

“He likes me,” he tells Derek. He’s almost vibrating, his happiness too big to contain. Alex is used to feeling like his skin doesn’t fit, but not like this. Not in a good way.

Derek smiles broadly. “Of course he does. He’d be an idiot if he didn’t.”

Alex laughs.

Even hours later, when he’s staring at his bedroom ceiling and replaying the night in his head, he can’t wipe the smile off his face. He goes to sleep wearing it, and wakes up with the trace of it still on his lips.


	6. Chapter 6

(13)

 

The dress is maybe a little short?

Alex twirls in front of his mirror, and the light fabric with its flowery pattern lifts as the air takes it. Then the hem settles above his knees again, and Alex frowns at his reflection. Too short? He’s not certain. He’s so caught up in wondering that he misses the sudden flurry of activity from downstairs, until the cold, chemical smell of air freshener reaches him and his nostrils twitch. The only reason they ever break out that awful air freshener is to disguise Stiles’s scent if someone comes to the house. He hears Stiles’s footsteps thumping up the stairs and into his bedroom.

A moment later his mom calls out. “Alex?”

He heads downstairs, tugging at the hem of the dress. “What?”

“Jason’s here.” Talia’s face is grave. “Take him out into the Preserve. Don’t invite him back here.”

Oh.

 _Oh_.

Jason came out to the _house_. That means he seriously wants to be Alex’s boyfriend—okay, Alex knew that because of the kissing and stuff, but this is a whole other level. This means he’s trying to make it all official, by coming to speak to Alex’s alpha. Something in Alex’s heart swells a little at that, because if Jason wants to do this properly then it means people will _know_ , and that means that Jason isn’t ashamed that people will know.

Except his mom didn’t invite him inside like she’s supposed to. She didn’t welcome him into her territory. She can’t, because of Stiles, but Jason doesn’t know that.

“Oh,” he says. “Okay, Mom.” He opens the door. “Hi, Jason.”

Jason looks nervous. His gaze darts between Talia and Alex before it lands on Alex for good. His eyes widen. “You look, um, you look nice.”

Alex had almost forgotten he was wearing a dress. He smoothes the fabric down self-consciously, and feels his face burn. “Thanks. Let’s go for a walk.”

It’s a nice day.

It’s sunny, and not too cool, and the sunlight feels good on Alex’s bare skin. Jason doesn’t ask about not being let inside, and Alex doesn’t know how to explain it so he doesn’t say anything. At first Jason's shoulders are slumped and he casts a few worried looks back toward the house, but pretty soon they’re talking the same as always, about schoolwork and video games and what shows they’re watching on TV, just like normal. Alex notices that Jason keeps staring at his bare legs and at his dress, and kind of smiling like he thinks Alex looks more than nice. Like maybe he thinks Alex is pretty.

They kiss for a little while under the spreading bows of an oak, dappled in sunlight, and Alex can’t breathe when Jason holds him gently by the hips. Jason’s hands are shaking a bit, so Alex slides one of his hands down to cover one of Jason’s, to let him know that he’s okay with it. More than okay with it. Jason pulls back from the kiss to rub their cheeks together lightly, and it’s so close to scenting him properly that Alex has to lock his knees so they don’t give out.

Jason holds his hand when they walk back toward the house.

 

***

 

Jason turns up for the next three days in a row, his shoulders squared and a hard line to his mouth, the way he looks when he’s about to go onto the court before a big game. Each time Talia doesn’t invite him in, and each time Alex walks with him in the Preserve. Alex’s wolf is unsettled and anxious. He thinks Jason’s must be as well. On the last day they barely talk and Jason keeps looking at Alex like he’s almost reproachful, and he doesn’t hold his hand.

The next day at school, when Alex tries to leave geography, Jason catches him.

“Alex?”

“What?”

“I really like you…”

It doesn’t feel warm like the first time Jason said it, because Alex can hear what’s coming next before Jason even says it. He hunches over a little like he’s trying to protect himself from a blow.

Jason’s voice wavers. “I really like you, but I _can’t_ , because Alpha Hale doesn’t like me.”

“That’s not true,” Alex says, his voice no more than a strained whisper.

“I have to do it _properly_!”

Alex gets it. They’re not just two kids who want to make out sometimes. They’re two wolves, and Talia Hale isn’t just a pack alpha, she’s the Alpha of Beacon Hills. Jason’s wolf needs her to welcome him into her territory. To make his intentions clear and then to continue to act without the Alpha’s explicit approval is unthinkable. Only a rogue omega would dare flout an alpha’s authority like that, or a rebellious pack member trying to provoke an alpha and force a challenge. Every instinct in Jason is pushing him toward seeking Talia’s welcome, and he’s been rebuffed four straight days in a row.

He gets it, but it doesn’t make it any easier. “Jason…”

“I’m sorry,” Jason says. “I’m really sorry, but I _can’t_.”

And Alex finds himself nodding dumbly, just like every other time when he’s had his heart ripped out at school. Just standing there and taking it, because that’s what he’s supposed to do.

The rest of the day passes in a fog.

He doesn’t even care when Charlie knocks his lunch tray out of his hands in the cafeteria. Everyone laughs, but Alex hardly hears it.

“Hey,” Malia says when her and Cora swing by after school to collect Matty. “Aren’t you supposed to be shooting hoops today?”

“Not today,” Alex manages as he climbs into the car behind Matty.

Malia and Cora exchange a worried glance.

Alex fumbles in his pocket for his iPod, and jams the earbuds in so that he doesn’t have to talk.

He stares out the window the whole way home.

 

***

 

His calm numbness unravels the second he sees his mother.

“He th-thinks you don’t like him! He thinks he isn’t welcome here!”

His mom folds him into an embrace and holds him while he sobs, and a part of Alex wants to kick and punch until she lets go, because this is _her_ fault, and it’s Stiles’s fault, and it’s Derek’s fault too, and everyone’s, because why should they get what they want all the time? When is it Alex’s turn to get what he wants?

He had it, right there. A boy who liked him for whoever he was, and that’s as fantastical and unthinkable as a real, living human like Stiles, isn’t it? He had everything right there, and he’d hardly had a chance to get used to what happiness felt like before it was ripped away from him again.

 

***

 

School is bad. Jason doesn’t talk to him anymore, and the next few weeks hurt. Sometimes he finds himself heading toward the gym after school just out of habit, before he remembers that Jason broke up with him. Kind of. Does one date count as dating? Alex doesn’t know. He tries to tell himself that he’s no worse off than before Jason was his friend, but it isn’t really true, because now he knows exactly what he’s missing and exactly how much it hurts.

The dance comes and goes, and nobody invites Alex. He stays at home, in his room, and pretends not to hear when Matty leaves, chattering with excitement. He wonders if Jason would have asked him, and if he would have said yes. He wonders if they would have held hands under the balloons and wilting streamers in the gym. He wonders if it would have felt magical.

So, school is bad, but it’s not as bad as it could be. Somehow he’s not being bullied as much. It’s like Sean and Charlie and the others suddenly aren’t that interested. Maybe they’ve found someone else to pick on, or maybe Alex is just so fucking miserable that there’s no sport in it for them anymore.

Or maybe there’s something else at play.

“Did you guys hear?” Nolan asks at lunch one day. Nolan’s parents live in the trailer park on the edge of town. His dad is a drunk. It seems like an unfair reason for Nolan to be stuck at the loser table, but when did fairness count for anything? “Charlie got in a fight with Jason!”

Alex’s fork clatters to the table.

Nolan beams. “And Jason kicked his ass!”

“Good,” Mackenzie says staunchly. “Serves him right!”

“They both got suspended for a week,” Nolan says. “It sucks. I mean, they shouldn’t suspend Jason, they should give him extra credit or something!”

“Yeah, Jason seems _nice_ ,” Mackenzie says, looking a little puzzled by that.

Since when are any of the popular kids nice?

Alex picks up his fork again, and tries not to remember the feel of Jason’s mouth against his own, his hands on his hips, or the brightness in his eyes when he smiled at Alex, like Alex was something amazing.

 

***

 

There’s a chair in his dad’s workshop that’s been there for as long as Alex can remember. It’s old, and kind of rickety. The varnish has worn down in places, leaving it mottled like tortoiseshell. It sits in the one clear corner of the workshop, away from the sharp-bladed tools. The little kids know that if they want to spend time with James as he works, they sit in the chair and they don’t move a muscle.

It’s been years since Alex has been small enough to be under those kinds of restrictions, but when he gets to the workshop he heads for the chair anyway. There’s a smudge of peanut butter on the armrest, probably from Cassie or Jacob. Alex doesn’t care. He sits down and draws his legs up. He hugs his knees and watches as his dad measures out a length of timber.

His dad doesn’t say anything, just continues to work and waits for Alex to talk. Words don’t come easily to Alex any more. It takes a while before he finds them.

“Can I go to boarding school?” Alex asks, his stomach twisting into knots at the thought.

“Boarding school?” James’s voice is calm. “I don’t know, pup. I think the pack would miss you.”

“I don’t want to be here anymore.” Alex’s heart beats a little faster with the lie. Except it’s not exactly a lie. He can’t tell what it is. Maybe it’s just his flight response kicking in.

“Here with the pack, or here at your school?” his dad asks. He sets the wood aside and leans on the workbench.

“My school,” Alex whispers. “But also Mom, a bit.”

James raises his eyebrows slightly. “It’s a tough job, being an alpha.”

Alex nods miserably.

“It’s a tough job growing up too.” James reaches for another length of timber. “Come and give me a hand with this.”

Alex crosses the floor to the workbench, his trainers crunching through sweet-smelling sawdust. “What do you need help with?”

“I just wanted a hug.” His dad slings an arm around him, and sighs deeply. “Alex, your mom will never agree to a boarding school, and neither will I. You need your pack, and we need you too.”

Alex closes his eyes and leans into his dad’s embrace.

“I know school’s been rough for you lately, but sending you away will never be an option.” His dad presses his face into his hair and inhales. “But we can look into home schooling if that’s something you think might work for you.”

“Really?” Alex mumbles.

His dad squeezes him tighter. “We just want you to be happy, Alex.”

 _I almost was_ , Alex thinks. _I almost was._

 

***

 

Stiles is leaving. Derek and Peter think they’ve figured out where he came from, and they’re going there to see if they can find his human family. Alex hopes they can’t, in a way. He thinks Stiles almost hopes it as well, and so does Derek. Stiles and Derek move around each other like they’re attached by invisible stings. Sometimes Alex thinks if he can only tilt his head right, he’ll see the light shimmering along those stings, shining silver or gold. Sometimes when they get too far away from one another the string pulls tight, jerking them back together. And when they meet again, hands touching, leaning in to one another, they both relax again and smile.

Alex isn’t sure how they can even bear the thought of severing those glowing ties. Snapping them like spiders’ silk. It makes him ache just to watch them.

He cries when Stiles leaves. It’s only been eight months, but it feels like Stiles belongs with them more than he can ever belong in some unknown place out in the wilderness. Everyone else cries too.

Every morning Alex looks at the empty spot at the table where Stiles should be, and hopes that he and Derek and Peter don’t find his dad. He doesn’t want Stiles to be unhappy, but he doesn’t want Derek to be unhappy either. He doesn’t like this world, where one person’s happiness can only come at the cost of someone else’s. It isn’t right.

Mark, his sister Laura’s husband, takes him aside one afternoon and they talk about home schooling. Mark teaches elementary school. Together they look through some of the programs.

“Academically, I think you’d be fine with this,” Mark tells him. “You’re a motivated student, and we’ll actually be able to tailor the program to what interests you. That’s a real advantage to home schooling, when it’s done right. You’re not going to be stuck going at the same pace as the twenty other kids in your class.”

Alex nods.

Mark hesitates. “But, Alex, there are disadvantages as well, okay?”

“Like what?”

“Like socializing with kids outside your own pack,” Mark says. “That’s important too.”

Alex huffs. “They don’t _socialize_ with me, Mark. They make fun of me and break my stuff and call me names.”

Mark’s grip tightens so much on his pen that his knuckles turn white. “I know. I know.”

Alex shrugs.

Mark runs a hand through his hair. “Your school’s anti-bullying policy isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.”

Alex ducks his head. He knows that his mom and dad have been down to the school a million times, and he knows Mark has too, because Mark’s a teacher and knows how to deal with the administration. Except it didn’t change anything at all, it just made the other kids careful to do it when there were no adults around.

“Anyway.” Mark puts the pen down before he breaks it. “I’ve talked to your mom about this, and I think we’ve got a deal.”

“What deal?” Alex asks.

“We can try home schooling you for your ninth grade,” Mark says. “But we want you to think about starting tenth grade at the high school.”

Alex wrinkles his nose. From everything he’s heard, high school is supposed to be _worse_. 

“Beacon Hills High is a good school,” Mark says. “And Malia will be a senior when you start there.” He makes a face. “If she keeps her grades up. Otherwise she’ll be a junior until she’s forty. Anyway, it’s a good school, and Malia will be there to look out for you. Most of the teachers are good, and they don’t mess around when it comes to bullying.”

Alex twists his hands in his lap. “I don’t know.”

Mark nods. “If it doesn’t work out, we’ll go back to home schooling. We just want you to give it a chance. Do you think you can do that?”

“I can try, I guess,” Alex says.

Mark’s smile is half relief, and half something like pride. “Good. That’s all we’re asking, okay?”

“Okay,” Alex says softly.

He can try.

Sometimes it feels like that’s all he ever does. Always trying, and always falling too short.

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

 

 

(13)

 

Happiness was a bright, ephemeral thing.

It was a firefly.

Once, when he was five, Alex caught a bunch of fireflies in a jar and brought them home. He thought of how magical they would look, spinning shining galaxies in his bedroom at night, but the fireflies didn’t dance for him. They died instead, and Alex tipped them down the bathroom sink.

Maybe Alex is only allowed to look at happiness.

Maybe he’s not supposed to try and hold onto it. 

 

***

 

Humans.

Peter and Derek and Stiles come back, and they bring _humans_. One of them is Stiles’s dad, and the other one is a girl called Lydia. They smell so weird. Maybe Alex had gotten used to Stiles’s scent, because he would swear he’s never smelled anything like John and Lydia. They smell… _hungry_? Alex isn’t sure how he even knows that. Maybe his senses are finally kicking in how they’re supposed to or something. He thinks that his mom can smell it too, whatever it is, because the second John and Lydia are upstairs taking showers, Talia and Kaylee are rattling around in the kitchen throwing together omelets, even though it’s not dinner time yet.

Uncle Peter looks ridiculously proud of himself, for some reason.

Derek looks kind of shell-shocked.

Stiles’s grin is wide enough to swallow the world.

Alan Deaton, the Hale pack emissary, is sent for. He turns up when the humans are still upstairs, and greets Talia respectfully. Then he runs his hand over Alex’s head. Alex doesn’t mind, because he likes Deaton. Deaton is a vet, and Alex used to go and help out with the animals a lot when he was younger. Deaton, being the emissary, is also the expert of pack lore and on werewolf history. He once showed Alex some old books that had stories about wolves like him. They weren’t in English, so Alex couldn’t read them, but it helped him a little to know that their stories were there all the same.

“I swear I turn around for a minute, and you’ve grown a foot,” Deaton tells him.

Alex huffs.

Whatever’s going on the library, it’s serious business. Alex isn’t allowed inside, and Aunt Clare shoos him along when she sees him hanging around outside the door with Matty and Cora and Malia.

“When it’s your business, you’ll be told,” she tells them, and growls when they don’t move quickly enough.

They’re told the next morning at breakfast.

“It’s an exciting tale full of adventure and daring and _wolfsbane_ ,” Uncle Peter says.

Derek rolls his eyes.

Alex glances quickly at John Stilinksi at the mention of wolfsbane, and the human looks so uncomfortable that he thinks it’s probably true.

“Peter,” Talia says in a warning tone.

Peter flashes a grin at her. “Talia, please, it’s not often I have a captive audience. Speaking of captives—”

“Peter!” It’s Talia’s turn to roll her eyes. “If you can’t be sensible.” She regards her pack. “Same rules for John and Lydia as for Stiles. Nobody mentions they’re here, or talks about them outside of this house. Understood?”

The pack nods.

“Mom,” Cora says with a frown. “Hiding Stiles was difficult enough.” She doesn’t look at Alex, doesn’t mention Jason, and Alex is grateful for that. “Won’t hiding two other people be even harder?”

“Thirty-eight other people,” Peter chips in.

“What?” Cora’s jaw drops.

Talia raises her palm for quiet. “We’re getting to that. Peter thinks, and Deaton agrees, that it will be possible to disguise the scents of the humans using the knowledge in the old emissary books, so that they’ll smell like wolves. _If_ they can do that then yes, the rest of Stiles’s pack will be coming to live with us.” She looks at John. “I’m sorry, is pack the right word?”

“It’s fine,” he says.

Matty gasps. “If Stiles smells like us he can come into town!”

Stiles beams.

“Thirty-eight people?” Uncle William asks. “Where are we going to put them all?”

“That’s where you come in.” Talia smiles at her brother. “If it works, they’re going to need somewhere to live.”

William is an architect, just like Derek wants to be.

“It’s a big ask, I know,” Talia says, regarding each member of the pack in turn. “But we’re going to do our best.”

Alex doesn’t really care about the practicalities. He’s too relieved to have Derek and Stiles back, and for maybe for good if the magic stuff from the emissary books works out. Magic! It’s just as weird as there actually being humans still, or maybe as strange as a boy whose wolf is a female. Alex isn’t really in a position to judge.

It’s just so good to have them here again. The tightness he’s been carrying around in his chest for weeks loosens just a little bit to have them home again.

Derek finds him in the living room later that day, and sits down on the couch next to him. Alex inches closer until Derek’s arm comes around him. He rests his head on Derek’s shoulder and breathes in his scent.

“Where’s Stiles?”

“Upstairs.” Derek smiles. “Making his dad read him a story.”

Alex thinks maybe that should be funny, since Stiles is way too old for that, but really, it’s kind of sad. Stiles was just a little kid when he got lost from his dad and the other humans.

“I’m glad you’re back,” he says, and nestles closer.

Derek leans down and presses his nose against Alex’s hair and inhales. “Me too.”

“Did you really get shot with wolfsbane arrows? That’s what Peter told Matty.”

Derek lifts his free arm and rubs his chest. “We really did.”

Alex feels a little jolt of shock at that. “Shit!”

“Language,” Derek says, and pinches his arm. Then he smiles, and shakes his head. “I thought we were dead, but Peter… Peter was actually incredible.”

“Peter’s an evil genius,” Alex mumbles.

“He really is,” Derek says. “I’m glad he’s on our side.”

“Me too.”

They sit in the quiet for a while longer, and then Derek says, “How’s school?”

“Same.” Alex burrows closer. “Mom and Dad say I can be home schooled for ninth grade, to see how that goes, so I guess I just have to see out the rest of the school year.”

“Is that what you want?”

Alex thinks about it for a moment. “No. I want to be normal, but that’s not gonna happen, is it?”

Derek doesn’t say anything, and Alex is really, really glad.

He likes it that his pack doesn’t pretend. Like once he said to his therapist—he has a new one now—that he wasn’t normal, and she said he was _special_ , and he hated that. He hates like he’s supposed to think that this is some sort of gift, like he should be thankful that at least he’ll never be ordinary. Only people who aren’t laughed at or pushed around think that being ordinary is something to look down on.

“How’s it going with Jason?” Derek asks.

“It’s not going anywhere,” Alex says, swallowing. He squeezes his eyes shut as Derek starts to rub his back. “It’s done.”

Derek tugs gently at a lock of hair at hair at the nape of his neck.

“I mean, it wasn’t anything much, not like you and Stiles have…” He can’t finish the thought. It wasn’t as bright, as big and as absolutely certain as the bond between Derek and Stiles, those shining, glittering strings that connect them and tangle them together and always will. What he and Jason had was new and unsure and mostly kind of awkward. They spent as much time avoiding making eye contact as they did making out, but it wasn’t nothing.

It was never nothing, and Alex can’t like and pretend that it was.

 

 

***

 

One night Stiles comes rushing into Alex’s door. “Smell me!”

“What?” Alex blinks in the sudden light and tries to turn his face back into his pillow. What time is it even?

“Smell me!” Stiles demands, flinging himself onto Alex’s bed. “Smell me now, Alex!”

He flops forward onto Alex. He’s crazy. His little fox brain has finally broken. Alex grumbles and shoves his jaw up against Stiles’s throat, and inhales. His breath catches. “Holy shit!”

Stiles pulls back, sitting up and crossing his legs. He bounces a little, his eyes big. “What do I smell like?”

“You smell like a _wolf_.” Alex sits up and leans forward to punch him gently on the shoulder. “And you also smell like Derek, which is totally gross.”

Stiles waggles his eyebrows and leers. He is disturbing in ways Alex can’t even begin to articulate, but never fail to make him laugh.

“Look.” Stiles is wearing a small wooden disc around his neck. It doesn’t look like much. There’s some sort of runes carved into it. Stiles lifts it over his neck, and sets it aside carefully. Then he motions Alex closer.

Alex leans forward and inhales.

 _Human_.

“Wow,” he breathes when Stiles puts the amulet on again and his scent changes again. “That’s _amazing_.”

“I know,” Stiles says. “Lydia and Deaton are making them for everyone, so they can come and live here with us!”

Alex touches the rune with the tip of his forefinger. “Wow.”

“I want it tattooed on my ass,” Stiles says. “Because I always lose things. It’d be hard to lose an ass tattoo.”

“That is a very good point,” Alex agrees.

“Alex,” Stiles says, his voice hushed. “This means wolves won’t know we’re human. We won’t be a _secret_.”

“Yeah.” Alex smiles a little. “You can go into town, and see a real movie, and everything!”

Stiles punches Alex a lot harder in the shoulder than Alex did to him. “Yeah, and wolves can come to the house!”

“Ow,” Alex says, rubbing his shoulder even though it doesn’t actually hurt for more than a second. He just really doesn’t know what else to say. Stiles is grinning like this is Christmas, for everyone, and Alex doesn’t know how to tell him that it’s not. Not for Alex.

Jason won’t come back.

Why would he?

Alex tries to drown the little flare of hope inside him that whispers _maybe_.

It feels like his whole life is built on _maybe_ —

Maybe he’ll fit his skin one day.

Maybe he’ll grow up and be okay.

Maybe things will get better.

Maybe Jason will want to be his friend again some day.

—and _maybe_ isn’t strong enough to sustain that kind of hope.

 

***

 

Talia might be the pack alpha and also the Alpha of all of Beacon Hills, but this is a really, really dumb idea. Like really dumb. The dumbest.

“Alex,” she says, “I’ve spoken to Ian and Mary and they’ve agreed.”

Ian and Mary are Jason’s _parents_ , and Talia has invited them—and Jason—to dinner, as a test run to make sure that Stiles and John and Lydia don’t smell like humans. At first Alex worries that the Hales have already pulled Jason into enough of their weirdness, and this is a _bad_ idea, but then Derek tells him that his mom invited the Cormacks here because she’s sorry that Alex got hurt, and because she wants to make it right between their packs.

And maybe, Alex thinks, between their sons.

Alex doesn’t feel much like a son as he gets dressed.

He feels like a daughter.

He wears a dress. It’s a moss green halter neck dress and there is no way, even though Alex pulls on a pair of leggings underneath, that it could be mistaken for a tunic, or a smock, or anything other than a _dress_. That girls wear. The ballet flats Alex slips his feet into probably don’t help either.

Alex stares at his reflection in the mirror for a while. His hair is the longest he’s worn it in a while, but it’s still short. He can just about muss it up so it looks almost like a cute pixie cut, but it’s still a boy staring anxiously back out of the mirror.

He thinks wistfully of the cosmetics, still untouched, that Uncle Peter brought him months ago and wishes that he had the courage to try them. His heart beats faster when he thinks of it, and he has to curl his fingers into fists to stop himself from pulling the drawer open.

Even if he doesn’t know _why_ he wants to stop.

He’s already wearing a _dress_.

Where’s the line even?

Why not let the wolf do what she wants?

Jason said it was cool to be himself. Does he still think that?

A hundred insecurities crowd him. A thousand. A million. Coming thick and fast, like some giant flock of screaming birds, wings beating, blocking out the sun. For a moment Alex feels like he has so much dust in his lungs that he can’t breathe.

When he hears the Cormacks arrive, his first instinct is to dive under his bed and never come out. Instead, he forces himself to leave his room, and to walk down the stairs on shaky legs, with an ever shakier smile plastered to his face.

Jason is right there, and he’s staring, and Alex is definitely going to throw up.

Jason’s dad elbows him.

“Hi, Alex.” His voice comes out like it’s been forced from squeaky bellows. “You look… you look _beautiful_.”

 

 

***

 

They sneak into the downstairs bathroom after dessert and Alex leans up against the counter. Jason presses against him and suddenly they’re kissing again. Alex’s heart is beating so fast that he’s afraid he’ll pass out. Instead, he puts his hands on Jason’s shoulders and pulls him closer.

Jason’s mouth is warm and soft, and their kisses are broken by nervous gasps and shy smiles.

Alex doesn’t even hear the door opening.

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Derek says, and shuts it again quickly.

Alex squeaks with embarrassment, and rests his forehead against Jason’s shoulder while he shakes with silent laughter.

“Oh. God. Oh, your scary brother’s going to kill me!”

Alex curls his fingers through Jason’s. “He’s not scary. It’s just the leather jacket.”

“And the car,” Jason says.

Alex grins at him. “Yeah, and the car.”

“Also, he glares a lot.”

Alex shrugs. “Yeah, he does.” He wrinkles his nose. “Can I tell you a secret?”

“What?”

“He’s actually really shy.”

“Really?” Jason looks dubious. “So he won’t really kill me?”

“Probably not,” Alex says. “I mean, unless you’re mean to me or something.”

He’s not sure if they’re here yet, if they can tease each other about this stuff, but Jason flushes and smiles.

“So I always have to be nice to you?”

“Yeah,” Alex says, warmth bursting through him. “Always.”

So Jason kisses him again.


	8. Chapter 8

(15)

 

Malia isn’t the squishiest person in the world. She’s full of sharp edges and snark, and when she smiles she shows her teeth in a way that’s more threatening than friendly. Still, there’s nobody else Alex would rather have by his side as he walks into his first day at Beacon Hills High. He’s a tenth grader now.

Last year was good. Home schooling was good, but it felt a little like treading water. Sooner or later, Alex knew he’d have to face the world again. For the past few weeks Jason’s been telling him all about the high school, and how he can’t wait to sit with Alex at lunch, and hopefully Alex will have some AP classes they might be in together.

Jason has been the best boyfriend ever.

Okay, so they mostly only saw each other a few times a week last year, but now Alex will see him every single day. He tries to hold onto that thought as he walks toward the high school. He’s not used to being around so many kids after so long. He’s not used to the noise, or the smell of so many people who aren’t pack. At the back of his mind, or maybe in the pit of his stomach, he’s aware that it’s not just Jason he’ll be seeing today, it’s Sean and Charlie too, but he keeps his head up.

He’s spent a year preparing for this.

He’s not going to be the same kid he was in eighth grade.

He’s not going to try to hide what he can’t.

He’s wearing nail polish today. He’s wearing a shirt with flowers embroidered along the hem over his jeans. It’s not too much, not when at home he’s gotten used to wearing his dresses whenever he wants, but this is _school_. He might as well be wearing a miniskirt and heels.

This is school, but even in the walk across the parking lot Alex sees other kids who are breaking the rules of what it means to be normal. He sees kids with weird piercings, and stranger clothes than Alex is wearing, and one kid even has a purple mohawk. Maybe the rules are different here, or maybe nobody gives a fuck.

God. Is that even possible?

Jason is waiting for him outside the wide front doors, at the bottom of the steps.

“Hey!” he exclaims excitedly.

Alex smiles and blushes. “Hey.”

Malia rolls her eyes. “Okay, you’ve got my schedule. If anyone gives you shit, come and find me and I will make them pray for the sweet release of death, okay?”

“Okay,” Alex says, still smiling at Jason.

Malia stomps up the steps.

“You nervous?” Jason asks him.

Alex draws a deep breath. “A little, I guess. But not as bad as I thought I would be.”

“Good.” Jason reaches out for him.

They walk inside holding hands.

 

***

 

High school is crazy. Alex gets lost twice before lunch. He’s looking for his math classroom when he becomes aware of a kid walking along beside him. His heartbeat skips, before he actually gets a look at the guy.

“Nolan! Holy shit, you got _tall_!”

Nolan grins. “I kinda did. It’s good to see you again, Alex.”

“Thanks. Hey, um, are you looking for math as well?”

“Yeah.”

They both arrive five minutes late, but it’s the first day so the teacher cuts them some slack. The school is full of confused freshmen.

Before lunch, Alex has economics.

Oh wow.

The teacher, Finstock—“Call me Coach, or cupcake. The choice is yours”—has to be certifiably insane. What is supposed to be a brief introduction to the class turns into a twenty-minute rant about parking fines, the space program, and why the hell can’t you buy Crystal Pepsi anymore? It’s kind of intense.

“Hale,” Finstock says when he finally does a roll call. “Alex Hale. As in Derek and Cora’s brother?”

“Yes, Coach,” Alex says. He’s not calling anyone cupcake.

Finstock narrows one eye at him. Just one. The other one threatens to bulge out of his skull. “I refuse to lose another Hale to basketball or track and field. You’re trying out for lacrosse. Wednesday afternoon. Don’t be late.”

“Yes, Coach,” Alex says. Crap. He doesn’t know the first thing about lacrosse. Except he’s pretty sure he’ll be terrible at it.

He doesn’t have any classes with Jason, not even AP English, which sucks a bit. He also doesn’t have any classes with Sean or Charlie though, so that’s good. Maybe they’ve forgotten about him in the year he was at home, but Alex is glad he doesn’t have to test it. He’ll see them around in the halls sooner or later, anyway.

It’s sooner.

He’s on his way to lunch when he feels someone staring, and turns his head to see that it’s Sean. Sean is taller now too. He’s also got acne, which Alex is perversely pleased about. Sean doesn’t say anything, just curls his lip a little. Alex hopes that’s as bad as it gets, but he wouldn’t put money on it.

Anyway, he’s got Jason, and he’s got Malia too. Malia doesn’t care if she’s a senior now, or that she’s a girl. She’ll absolutely get into a drag-down fight with a freshman if she has to. She’s Peter’s daughter all over.

Lunch is good. He sits with Jason and finally meets the other friends that Jason’s been telling him about all year. They seem pretty nice.

“Hey, everyone,” Jason says. “This is Alex. He’s my—”

Everyone waits.

Boyfriend? Girlfriend?

“He’s my Alex,” Jason decides at last, and flushes all the way to the roots of his hair while his friends laugh at him for being embarrassed.

He’s so fucking adorable that Alex could just die.  Instead, he shovels in his tater tots and grins.

High school.

Yeah, he’s got this.

 

***

 

It’s full moon.

Stiles is hanging around outside with the pack, waiting for the sun to go down.

“Tell me everything about school,” he says.

Alex flushes. “It was good.”

“Good?”

“It was better than I thought it would be,” Alex says. He sits down on the porch steps and toes off his trainers.

Stiles grins. “That’s awesome.”

Alex misses hanging out with Stiles all day, and with Lydia, and with Scott. When he was getting home-schooled, they were too. Lydia and Scott were already good with reading and stuff, but sometimes got lost when it came to some of the curriculum. And Stiles was playing catch up the whole year. He’s at an eighth-grade level now, Mark says, but everyone knows Stiles is a lot smarter than his grades reflect. Stiles is eighteen now, and he wants to get his GED by the time he’s twenty. These days when Alex sees him he’s usually surrounded by a pile of books.

Lydia’s really smart too.

Scott…well, Scott has other strengths. Ever since Talia gave him the bite he’s been working in town with Deaton at the animal clinic. He really seems to like it, but whenever Deaton mentions going to college to study veterinary medicine he gets a panicked look in his eye.

None of the other humans in the Preserve really seem to know what to do with their futures. They spent so long just surviving in the wilderness that to even think of something beyond that was like some sort of crazy fantasy. Now they’re safe, now that they’re not struggling every single day, they’re also a little lost.

Alex gets that.

He sometimes still feels the same.

The pack waits for the moon to rise.

 

***

 

Stiles runs with the pack, which mostly involves Derek and Scott and Alex herding him to make sure he doesn’t dive headfirst into any trees. He’s slower than a wolf, but nobody really cares. When he collapses, laughing, onto the forest floor, Alex shoves her damp nose in his face.

Stiles laughs and hugs her. “Gross, Alex!”

Alex thumps her tail against him.

In the distance, Talia howls.

“Go,” Stiles tells them. “Run and howl and be awesome!”

Derek huffs at him, and Stiles leans forward and kisses his muzzle. “Sourwolf.”

Alex yips with laughter.

The wolves take off into the darkness, but they circle back now and then to check on Stiles. Eventually Stiles wanders into the humans’ settlement, and the wolves take the opportunity to run without him.

Alex is the first one to head back for Stiles. She trots through the settlement, along the paths between the tiny houses that Derek and William made out of shipping containers. At first, the humans stayed inside on full moon nights. Now they’re not scared of the Hales. The three goats bleat frantically when Alex gets too close though.

“Alex?” Melissa McCall asks as she sees her. Melissa is sitting outside her house in a hammock chair that Scott bought her with his first paycheck from Deaton. She likes to stargaze.

Alex heads toward her, and lifts her muzzle so she can pet her gently.

Melissa cards her fingers through the thick hair at Alex’s ruff. “It’s a beautiful night.”

Alex bumps her head against Melissa’s hand in agreement, then trots toward John’s house. The door is open, and Stiles sitting inside with his dad. He’s telling some story, his eyes wide and his hands never stopping moving. Stiles talks with his whole body.

John notices Alex first. “Alex?”

The humans aren’t so great at telling them all apart in their wolf forms.

Alex steps inside and sits, her tail thumping.

“Tell my son I do _not_ need a television,” John says.

Alex cocks her head.

“It’s a waste of electricity.”

“You have solar!” Stiles exclaims. “Your electricity is literally free!”

“Just because something’s free doesn’t mean you can’t waste it,” John says.

“I’m just trying to bring you into this century,” Stiles tells him. “Actually, I’m trying to bring you into _last_ century.”

“Melissa has a television,” John says. Color rises on his cheeks. “If I want to watch something, I go to her place.”

“Oh,” Stiles says. Then: “ _Oh_. I see how it is.”

John reaches out and smacks him gently on the back of the head.

“Alex,” Stiles says imperiously, and points at his dad. “Attack!”

Alex huffs, and John rolls his eyes.

Stiles is an idiot.

 

***

 

When he first hit puberty, Alex thought that shifting back from wolf to human meant shedding the female part of him. But it was never really that simple, and it sometimes felt like he’d tied his stomach up in knots when he tried to pretend that she wasn’t there anymore. Now, he doesn’t fight her like he used to, like she was some hateful thing he had to hide. Now, for a few days before and after the full moon he’s not just a girl, he’s almost comfortable being a girl.

The only thing he doesn’t like is when he’s making out with Jason and he gets hard. That’s still a part of himself that feels anxious about that as a girl. When he’s mostly a boy he doesn’t mind, because as soon as Jason leaves he jerks off or whatever, but when he’s a girl he hates to touch himself down there. It feels wrong. It feels _good_ , because jerking off always feels good, but Alex is a girl and a girl shouldn’t have a dick.

It sucks. Alex’s thoughts about Jason are much more sexual when he’s a girl, but that’s also the time when he hates the idea of touching himself.

But the hardest days aren’t when he’s a girl, or when he’s both and a girl and a boy, or even when he’s mostly a boy. The hardest days are when he’s completely a boy, and sometimes Jason leans into kiss him and Alex’s entire body freezes in panic.

They’re making out on Alex’s bed one afternoon when Alex finally works up the courage to talk about it. “Does it matter to you that when I’m a boy sometimes I’d rather play video games than make out?”

Jason leans away from him. His brows draw together in a puzzled frown. “Not really? I mean, I like playing video games too.”

Alex swallows. “Sometimes, like when it’s a new moon, for a few days I’m pretty sure I’m straight.”

Jason’s jaw drops.

“I mean, it’s not like I don’t like making out and stuff,” Alex says. “Just, sometimes?”

Jason looks pale. “Have I been making you do stuff you don’t want to do?”

“No!” Alex reaches out and grabs his hand. “No, when I’m a girl I really like it, and most of the rest of the time when I’m like _between_ , I really like it too. There’s just maybe a few days, you know.”

“A few days when you’re _straight_ ,” Jason says, his brow crinkling in confusion.

“I’m sorry,” Alex whispers.

Jason makes a face, and drags his fingers through his hair. Leaves it sticking up in odd places. “So, on those days, does it gross you out if I touch you?”

“No!” Alex wishes he never said anything. Or at least wishes he could lie better. “Kind of? It’s not like it grosses me out, it’s just weird, you know?”

Jason doesn’t know. Of course he doesn’t know. And he looks like he’s about to cry or something.

“Jason.” Alex tightens his grip on Jason’s wrist. “I’m sorry, okay? I’ll still let you do stuff.”

Jason recoils like he’s been stung, pulling his arm away. “I don’t want you to _let_ me! I want you to like it too!”

“I’m wrecking it. Please don’t hate me!” Alex's throat aches as he fights his sudden tears back. “I’m sorry! Can’t we just pretend I didn’t say anything?”

Jason’s still staring at him like he’s something monstrous. “No!”

“I’m sorry,” Alex whispers.

He should never have said anything. He should have kept it a secret, and just played along for those few days, because he knows, if he wrecks this, that he’ll never find anyone else who will like him the way Jason does. He should have just pretended, on those days when every fiber of his body knows that he’s unequivocally a boy, that he’s a _straight_ boy, that it still feels good to touch and kiss Jason. It’s only a couple of days a month, and then the wolf starts to reassert herself and the lines blur between boy and girl again, and it _does_ feel good. But Alex just had to open his mouth, and now he’s ruined everything.

He expects Jason to leave, except Jason doesn’t. He just sits there, and the silence draws out in excruciating degrees.

At last, Jason speaks. “Do you still want to go out with me?”

Alex looks up at him, hopeful. “Yeah. Do you still want to go out with me?”

“Yeah.” Jason swallows. “But I don’t want to kiss you if you don’t want me to.”

“I don’t mind,” Alex says, even though his heartbeat skips.

“But I do,” Jason says. He chews his lower lip for a moment. “Will you tell me? When you don’t want to?”

“Okay,” Alex whispers, the tightness in his chest loosening. “Okay.”

They don’t make out any more that afternoon. They just sit together on Alex’s bed, holding hands like they’re afraid to let go.

 


	9. Chapter 9

(15)

 

For his first lacrosse game—how the hell did that even happen?—Alex warms the bench for a while, and then Coach sends him on to play. It’s surreal. His pack is in the stands watching and cheering, and so is Jason, and how did someone like Alex turn into a jock? It’s almost full moon, so his reflexes are sharper. He plays better on the field than he ever has in practice.

They still lose though, which just about breaks Coach’s heart, but Alex played his best and he’s pretty upbeat about the whole thing.

Afterward, in the locker room, it gets awkward. Most of the guys on the team are seniors, and Alex doesn’t know them very well, and he doesn’t want to shower in front of them. He doesn’t want to shower in front of _boys._ He averts his gaze as the guys start wandering around wearing next-to-nothing or, in some cases, actually nothing, and hopes that the steam from the showers hides his blush.

“Alex?”

Oh god. It’s Danny. Hot senior Danny who is wearing nothing except his towel, and he has more abs than are strictly necessary, and his skin is also kind of gleaming with sweat and steam, and—

“Alex?”

Alex swallows. “Sorry, what?”

“The last shower in the row,” Danny says, nodding in that direction. “It’s got a curtain. I’ll make sure none of the guys fuck around with it, okay?”

“Okay,” Alex breathes, nervous, but already absurdly grateful. Danny might be a senior, but he’s not an asshole. Everyone knows that.

He follows Danny toward the showers.

Jackson is kind of an asshole though. “Danny, stop trying to get the freshman alone!”

Danny makes a face as they get to the showers, and pulls the curtain around on its rattling track so that Alex is standing there alone. “Don’t be such a dick.”

“What?” Jackson demands.

“She can’t shower with the guys, douchebag.”

Alex winces, but Jackson doesn’t say anything else. Alex showers quickly, and Danny hangs around the whole time to make sure nobody messes with the curtain. When he comes outside, his towel wrapped around his chest, nobody says anything. Nothing except normal stuff anyway, like how they made some good plays, and if they’re meeting up for pizza later tonight, or if Coach will kick their asses if he finds out they actually celebrated after losing a game.

When Alex finally makes it outside, he finds Jason waiting for him.

Jason looks a little worried.

“Hey, Alex,” Jackson calls as he and Danny head out. He’s wearing the same arrogant sneer he always is, and Alex tenses, waiting for the kicker. Jackson only smirks. Or maybe it’s a smile. It’s hard to tell with him. “See you tomorrow for practice.”

“Okay,” Alex says, relief washing over him. “See you!”

Jason looks at him questioningly.

“It was okay,” Alex says. “I mean, the game sucked, but everything else was okay. It was _good_.” He squares his shoulders. “I’m gonna start training harder. I mean, I still don’t know what I’m doing out there, but I think I really want to stay on the team.”

 

***

 

Alex and Jason meet up every morning to run. Sometimes they run, and sometimes they end up making out in the Preserve. Jason is still nervous about making out close to the new moon, but he learns to read Alex’s body language a little better, and pretty soon he doesn’t need to ask whether Alex wants him to touch him or not. It’s actually better than it was before. Alex feels better knowing that it’s okay to want Jason like that, and some days it’s okay not to want him.

It’s still a little weird and confusing sometimes, and Alex still isn’t comfortable when he gets hard, but that’s okay too.

It’s working.

Alex’s days are swallowed up by school, and lacrosse practice, and homework, and hanging out, and hurrying upstairs after dinner to call Jason from the privacy of his room.

It’s so normal it’s ridiculous.

It makes the rest of the pack happy too. For the first time in a long time Alex doesn’t see the worry in his parents’ eyes when they look at him. The strain of struggling not to treat him any differently vanishes, now that at last they don’t have to. Nobody is walking on eggshells around him anymore.

Alex likes his life.

There was a time when he was certain he’d never be able to say that.

Jason spends a lot of time with the Hales. He’s still nervous of Derek and his leather jacket, and he thinks Stiles is a little weird, but he really likes Scott. They often all hang out together.

“Dude,” Stiles says one day to Scott as they’re traipsing through the Preserve, “if you get to tell me all about removing the testicles from cats, I think you can stand to hear about the thing that Derek does when—”

“Stiles!” both Scott and Derek exclaim at the same time.

Alex grins. “I could stand to hear about the thing.”

“Me too,” Jason pipes up.

Derek slings his arm around Stiles. It’s less of a hug than it is a headlock. “Stop corrupting the children.”

Stiles snorts.

Alex meets Jason’s gaze and flushes a little. It’s weird to joke about sex, because he and Jason haven’t actually done anything except make out yet. Sometimes Alex wishes they could get it out of the way so it’s not always _there_ , always being a thing they’re both acutely aware of without ever mentioning, but every time he screws his courage to try and make a move, he totally chickens out. He’s fifteen. He should be messing around a bit, right? And he’s ready. He thinks. Maybe.

He still feels a little weird about getting hard, he guesses, although lately he’s been thinking of Jason when he jerks off, and it’s feeling a little less weird and a lot more awesome every time.

Stiles breaks free from Derek’s headlock and clambers on top of a fallen log. He puts his arms out to balance himself.

Derek folds his arms over his chest and watches with one eyebrow quirked.

Stiles leaps down again, scattering leaves.

They’re walking with no particular direction in mind, because it’s a nice day and it’s good to get out in the fresh air.

“Hey,” Jason murmurs, and catches Alex by the hand. He tugs him behind a tree.

Alex snorts with laughter, and Jason makes a face and cups his hand over his mouth.

“Shh, we’re ditching them!”

Alex rolls his eyes, and sticks his tongue out so that Jason yelps and draws his hand back.

“Gross!” he exclaims.

“Gross? Seriously, you’ve had my tongue in your mouth.”

“Shut up,” Jason says, poking him in the ribs.

They both snort with barely-suppressed laughter as they listen to Derek and Stiles and Scott move on. Okay, so obviously they’re not being stealthy or anything, and the others know exactly where they are, but it’s kind of fun to pretend they’ve pulled a disappearing act.

Jason leans forward, and brushes a curl of Alex’s hair behind his ear. “It’s getting longer.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s pretty,” Jason murmurs.

“Yeah?” Color rises in Alex’s cheeks.

“Yeah.” Jason’s breath is warm against Alex’s mouth in that second before their lips touch. Jason rests his hands on Alex’s hips, and this is a position that they’ve become familiar with over the last few months. They’re both comfortable with this. Except today Alex doesn’t put his hands on Jason’s shoulders, or behind his neck. Today he slides his hands around behind Jason’s back, pulling him closer.

Jason’s hard—oh wow—and so is Alex, and they kind of grind against each other before either of them realizes exactly what they’re doing, and then they break apart with burning faces. Alex hooks a finger through the belt loop of Jason’s jeans though, so Jason can’t get too far. He closes his eyes when Jason leans in to kiss him again, and—

A sudden dull crack in the distance, as sharp as a bone snapping.

“ _Stiles!_ ” Derek’s cry is almost a howl.

Alex and Jason take off running.

When they get there, Stiles is lying in the bottom of a shallow gully. He’s clutching Derek’s hand tightly, and whimpering like the fox kit he once thought he was.

Alex smells blood.

Scott’s crouched over Stiles.

Alex and Jason skid down into the gully.

“What happened?” Alex demands.

“He was crossing, and the log snapped,” Derek grinds out between his teeth.

Alex drops to his knees beside Stiles.

“Ow,” Stiles whispers, his eyes filled with tears.

Jason looks bemused. “What are you guys doing? Stiles, just get up.”

Nobody looks at Jason.

Scott meets Alex’s gaze. Derek is too concerned with Stiles to look up.

“Don’t move him,” Scott says in a low voice. “He might have hurt his spine.”

“There’s blood,” Alex whispers. He can smell it, sweet and coppery.

Scott slides a hand under Stiles’s head. When it pulls it free again, his palm is covered in bright red blood.

Stiles moans. His face is pale, and his hand shakes in Derek’s.

Scott pulls his t-shirt off and bundles it up to press gently against the back of Stiles’s head. Stiles makes a pained noise and clutches Derek’s hand more tightly.

“It’s okay,” Derek tells him. “It’s okay.”

Alex watches as Scott’s white shirt soaks up blood like litmus paper.

“You guys,” Jason says, his voice rising in confusion. “You guys, why isn’t he healing?”

 

***

 

When Deaton has come and gone and Stiles is asleep in bed with four stitches in the back of his head, Alex waits outside the library for Jason. When Talia finally opens the door and ushers Jason back outside, he looks like the one with a concussion.

“Stiles is a _human_ ,” he whispers to Alex.

“Yeah.” Alex regards him anxiously.

“And Lydia, and John, and the whole rest of Stiles’s pack.”

“Yeah.”

“Holy _fuck_.” Jason blinks owlishly at Alex. “You said they were from _Canada_!”

To be fair, Alex only ever actually heavily implied that. Wolves can't lie. That doesn't mean they can't deceive though. "That was maybe not exactly the truth?" 

“No kidding!” Jason shakes his head, as though to clear it. “Humans are supposed to be all gone, and you’ve got a whole _bunch_ of them!”

“Are you freaking out about this?” Alex asks worriedly.

“I am,” Jason nods. “I totally am. Jesus, Alex, it’s incredible. Wow. It’s _crazy_.”

Alex tries to remember his own sense of wonder, but it wasn’t as acute as Jason’s. Stiles hadn’t seemed like a wonderful, exciting discovery. In the beginning he’d been so sad, so lost, and Alex can still remember the sounds he made when he cried after they’d locked him in the basement. He’d been a frightened little animal back then, not a person, not _Stiles_. Just a huddled ball of misery and loneliness.

“Alpha Hale said it’s got to be a secret,” Jason says. “But I’d never tell anyone anyway, you know?”

Alex hadn’t even been scared he would. “I know.”

“I like Stiles.” Jason shakes his head again. “Shit, though. Now I know why Derek’s so protective of him. I always thought he was just being like bossy or something, like that time he told Stiles not to touch that poison oak. I didn’t know Stiles could really get _hurt_.”

“I think Derek would be protective of him even if he could heal as fast as us,” Alex says with a smile.

“Yeah,” Jason says. “Because they’re mates.”

Alex nods, his stomach twisting up a little at the word. He remembers when he was younger, when he was hurting, and when he could almost see the invisible threads linking Stiles and Derek together. He ached so much for something like that for himself, something glittering and real. He’s not sure now if that’s what he and Jason have, but maybe? Sometimes he can almost feel the threads slipping over his skin as he moves, tugging him toward Jason.

Stiles crashed over Derek like a wave over a rock, broke over him like a storm, and maybe nothing like that happened for them, maybe nothing so dramatic—neither Jason nor Alex can exactly be compared to a force of nature—but just because a thing is softer doesn’t mean it’s not real.

Jason knows all of Alex’s secrets now, and all the secrets of the Hale pack. And Alex knows, even without Talia having to ask him, that Jason would never betray any one of those secrets.

He takes Jason by the hand and leads him back outside. They sit on the porch steps, shoulders bumping and fingers clasped. Jason’s astonishment fades at last, into something warm and accepting and bright that he wears in his smile. Like he’s pleased to have found out the truth, not bitter to have been deceived, and he’s happy.

When John and Melissa appear through the trees to come and check on Stiles, Jason watches them approach with quiet wonder. He doesn’t say anything.

“He okay?” John asks, his face pinched with worry.

“He’s upstairs sleeping,” Alex says. “Derek’s with him.”

“Jesus, that kid,” John says, shaking his head.

The screen door slams in its frame as John and Melissa go inside.

Alex picks up a dead leaf and shreds it into confetti.

“I hope he’s okay,” Jason says after a while. “Do you think concussions hurt?”

“I don’t know,” Alex says, shrugging. He copped a lacrosse stick to the face once. A short burst of agonizing pain as his nose cracked, but it was over in seconds, and then Coach was holding his nose in place so it healed straight. Minutes later he’d been playing again, like nothing had happened. Alex can’t imagine what it like to suffer injuries that linger longer than a few minutes at their worst.

“Humans are tough as hell,” Jason says, eyes wide.

Alex smiles at that.

Most people would say humans were weak and fragile, but Jason’s not most people. He never has been. Jason’s different.

Alex leans his head on Jason’s shoulder, and closes his eyes as Jason brings an arm around him. He smells like the woods, and damp earth, and happiness.

Maybe he was wrong about Jason. Maybe Jason is a force of nature after all, as gentle and relentless and the softening of the night into dawn.


	10. Chapter 10

(15)

 

It’s Alex’s first high school dance, and Malia’s last one. Alex wants to find a nice dress to wear. Malia isn’t really into fashion, like at all, and Alex thinks he’s probably testing the limits of her patience when they stop and look at yet another rack of dresses, but she doesn’t say anything. Just grits her teeth and waits while he checks through the rack.

It probably has a lot to do with the fact that Peter is home this weekend, and he’s footing the bill for this shopping expedition.

Peter has an eye for fashion that Malia definitely didn’t inherit.

“It’s shopping, Malia, not an extended session with a medieval torturer. Show Daddy your pretty smile, hmm?”

Malia growls and Peter laughs, delighted to get a rise out of her.

After they finally find a dress that Alex likes—Malia already grabbed the first one she saw—Peter takes them to a restaurant for lunch.

“So, Alex,” he says as they eat, “at the risk of Malia wolfing out right here and now, have you thought about shoes?”

Malia groans.

“It’s okay,” Alex says. “I have shoes that will work.”

Peter raises his brows. “Do you want them to work, Alex, or do you want them to look fucking incredible?”

Alex snorts. “Um, the second thing, I guess?”

“I’m catching a taxi home,” Malia announces, stabbing her fork into her pasta. “That way you can get your crazy shoe shopping fetish out of your system with Alex.”

“Actually, I get most of my crazy shoe shopping fetish out of my system with Lydia,” Peter shoots back with a grin. “For someone raised in the wilderness, she’s definitely embraced a love of heels.”

Malia rolls her eyes.

It was kind of awkward at first, when Peter and Lydia hooked up. Mostly because everyone thought that’s what it was: hooking up, and Lydia is only a little older than Malia, and it was kind of skeevy. But, despite the age difference, Peter and Lydia actually work together. They’re both smart and devious and utterly ruthless when they want to be, which just makes it funnier when they’re all soft and cuddly together and so obviously in love.

Also, Lydia is learning to do emissary magic, so she totally has the power to do terrible things to Peter if he’s an asshole. Matty thinks she’s going to turn him into a frog. Alex is pretty sure she isn’t. Lydia would never be so clichéd.

“So tell me all about this boyfriend of yours,” Peter says.

Malia starts guiltily.

“I was talking to Alex,” Peter says, quirking an eyebrow. “But if my little angel, my princess, my sugar puff wants to share something about a secret boyfriend…”

Malia narrows her eyes at him. “He has tattoos and a dick piercing?”

Peter doesn’t take the bait. “Does he also front a major drug ring and a criminal biker gang?”

Malia tries not to laugh.

“Because, sweetheart, you only deserve the best,” Peter tells her. “I don’t want any daughter of mine dating some street level dealer.”

“He’s in the chess club,” Malia says, stabbing her pasta aggressively. “And he’s valedictorian. He’s going to Stanford.”

Peter winces. “Oh, an academic. The _shame_.”

Alex’s jaw drops. “You’re dating Ben Winston?”

“Shut up,” Malia grumbles.

“I shall make a note of that name,” Peter announces airily, “and torment him mercilessly when he’s on my turf.”

Peter teaches art history at Stanford. Alex hopes for Ben Winston’s sake that he doesn’t take that class.

The rest of lunch passes quickly. Peter teases Malia just enough to get her out of her bad mood, but not enough to make her too crazy, and in the end she comes shopping for shoes with them after all. Alex picks a pair of heels—not too high—and Malia gets a pair of combat boots.

“Those are not for the dance,” Peter tells her warningly as they head for the car. “Those are for street brawls and military maneuvers only.”

Malia just grins. “Whatever you say, Dad.”

“She’s probably going to wear them to the dance,” Peter says to Alex.

“Probably,” Alex agrees happily, hugging his shopping bags to his chest.

 

***

 

The high school gym is full of colored lights and kids shuffling together while the music plays. Alex squeezes Jason’s hand tightly as they walk in the doors, because he’s suddenly terrified that everyone in the gym will turn around and stare. And the music will stop and the regular lights will be turned on, and there will be a moment of stark, horrible silence that will drag on for an eternity before everyone starts to howl with laughter.

Except nothing like that happens at all.

What happens is Jason holds Alex’s hand, and they go and get their photograph taken, and then line up for some punch. They say hello to a few people, and hang out at the edges of the crowd for a while, and then, still holding hands, they go and dance.

It’s lame, probably. It’s just some colored lights and weak punch and a local DJ, but it’s…somehow it’s _magic_.

Alex thinks of watching Lydia and Deaton working together in the library. What is magic except taking items from the everyday world, infusing them with belief, and transforming them into something greater than the sum of their parts? That’s what this is too.

And Jason.

Jason feels a lot like magic.

Alex wants to remember ever song the DJ plays tonight. He wants to remember every touch of Jason’s hands on his hips. He wants to remember this perfect night.

 

***

 

There’s one incident with the bathroom.

Jason’s getting them more punch, so Alex slips outside the gym to go pee, except Sean and the girl he’s with are making out right outside the girls’ bathroom, and Alex hesitates for a second.

“You can’t go in _there_ ,” Sean says.

Alex’s heart races.

“Jesus.” Sean looks him up and down. “You’re such a freak, you know?”

“He’s wearing a _dress_ ,” the girl laughs.

A little further down the hall, the door to the boys’ bathroom squeals open, and Jackson and Danny tumble out. They’re a little drunk. Danny’s bowtie is undone, and Jackson is shoving a flask into the pocket of his bespoke suit.

“Fuck you,” Jackson is saying. “I can totally hold my liquor.”

Danny grabs his arm to stop him walking into the wall. “Hey, Alex.” Danny’s gaze flicks between Alex and Sean and the girl. “Me and Jackson were just looking for you.”

“What?” Jackson asks, fishing his flask out again.

“So hurry up,” Danny says. “We’ll wait.”

Sean glowers.

Alex goes into the girls’ bathroom.

When he comes outside again, Sean and the girl have gone, but Danny and Jackson are waiting, just like they said they would.

“Thanks,” Alex tells Danny in a low voice as they head back toward the gym.

“Forget that asshole,” Danny tells him. “Go and have fun.”

“Yeah,” Jackson says, glowering. “If he gives you any shit, you come find us, and I’ll rip his tiny little balls off.”

“Um, thanks?”

Jackson growls and flexes his fingers like his claws are just waiting to break through.

Wow.

Jackson is a mean drunk.

Alex could not be more relieved that he’s on his side.

 

***

 

After the dance, Jason drives Alex home in his dad’s car.

“Do you want to stop somewhere first?” Alex asks. He twists his fingers in his lap.

“Oh, sure,” Jason says. “Do you want burgers or pizza?”

Alex lets out a snort.

“What?”

“Um, I kind of meant we could go parking,” Alex says. “But if you’re hungry…”

Jason grips the steering wheel tightly. “I’m not hungry!”

Alex laughs, then blushes, then stares fixedly out the passenger window as they drive.

There’s a dirt road in the Preserve that is only used by the rangers. It’s a fire trail. Jason turns the car onto it, and, a few hundred feet off the main road, stops and turns the engine off. There’s not much of a view here, it’s not like the lookout where all the rest of the kids go to make out or anything, but, really, nobody who goes parking with their boyfriend is actually concerned about the view, right?

Alex is nervous, though he’s not sure why.

Maybe it’s because parking after a dance feels like a cliché, but also like an expectation, and he’s thinking about all the other high school clichés too. Like losing his virginity in the back seat of a car. And he’s definitely not ready for that.

They make out for a little while, until the gearstick gets in the way.

“Do you want to, um…” Jason gestures toward the back seat.

“Okay,” Alex says.

He climbs out of the car, his hands shaking, and stands there awkwardly while Jason comes around to his side and opens the back door. If he’s not ready for this, then why did he agree to get in the back seat? He could have just asked Jason to drive him home.

He slides into the back.

Because he’s not ready to go the whole way or anything, but he does want to make out some more and it was really uncomfortable in the front. And he _trusts_ Jason.

Jason climbs in after him.

“This is weird,” he says, not quite meeting Alex’s eyes. “Like I feel like we should have a chauffeur or someone in the front.”

“Or your dad,” Alex says. “I mean, it’s his car.”

Jason makes a face and, oh, okay, now was probably not the time to bring up parents.

Alex changes the subject. “Hey, did you see Malia and Ben Winston dancing tonight? I didn’t even know she was dating him.”

Jason nods. “I’d kind of noticed her hanging around him at school and stuff, but I thought she was probably shaking him down for his lunch money or something. Malia is kind of terrifying.”

“She kind of is,” Alex agrees.

Jason curls his fingers through Alex’s. “So next week my pack’s got that thing in Los Angeles. Anyway, my mom says I’m old enough to stay home by myself, and now that Melanie’s away in college, it’ll just be me and Simon.”

Simon is Jason’s little brother. He’s seven.

“Are you asking my help to babysit?” Alex teases.

“No.” Jason elbows him. “But it would be cool if you wanted to stay over or something, if your mom says it’s okay.”

“I’ll ask,” Alex says, warmth spreading though him along with the sudden bloom of anxiety. He hasn’t been on a sleepover since middle school, and it’s nice to be asked, but he’s not dumb enough to think that a sleepover with his _boyfriend_ would be anything like the sleepovers he remembers.

“It’s gonna be a new moon,” Jason says. “So, you know, we’d just play video games and stuff.”

The warmth inside Alex grows as the anxiety fades. “That’d be cool.”

It’s weird to think that in a week he won’t feel like making out with Jason. The person he is now, the boy whose wolf is resting close enough to the surface to influence him even though he’s not completely a girl tonight, can’t even really imagine not being attracted to Jason in that way. Because Jason is cute, and he smells nice, and Alex loves curling his fingers around his biceps when they make out, but in a week Alex won’t feel the same thrill when he brushes against him. That thrill that makes his skin tingle, and his stomach knot up, and his dick hard.

Alex presses against Jason now, kissing him. He splays one hand over Jason’s chest, under his jacket but over his shirt, and feels his heart beating under his palm. He angles his body a way a little bit so that Jason won’t feel his erection.

Jason’s breath is loud when he pulls away. “You don’t, um, you don’t have to do that.”

“Do what?” Alex whispers.

“Um, I’m hard too.” Jason’s face is bright red even in the dim moonlight. “It’s cool.”

Alex swallows.

“If you want, I could…”

“What?”

“I could touch you?” Jason’s heart is racing as fast as Alex’s. “Like, down there?”

 _Down there_.

Jason sounds like a little kid talking about his private place, Alex thinks, before he realizes. No, he sounds like a sixteen-year-old guy who doesn’t want to call it a dick because he doesn’t know if Alex hates the word or not.

“It kind of weirds me out,” Alex says. “Like, my wolf, she knows it shouldn’t be there, and when it gets hard it’s kind of confusing? Like, um, the girl is really into you and stuff, but also the girl shouldn’t—shouldn’t have _that_.”

“Oh,” Jason says. “But you, like jerk off and stuff, right?”

Alex’s face burns. “Yeah, it’s kinda hard not to.”

Jason huffs out a little laugh. “I know right?” His face grows serious again. “So, I could like…I could jerk you off? If you want.”

Alex hunches over a little, even while his dick hardens even more at the thought of someone else’s touch. “Could I, um, could I do it to you too?”

“Okay,” Jason breathes. “Yeah, okay.”

They settle back against the seat. Jason puts a hand on Alex’s knee and slides it up underneath his dress. Alex tries not to jerk away as Jason’s fingers brush against the inside of his thigh. He reaches out and fumbles with the zip of Jason’s pants. He can feel Jason’s erection against the heel of his hand. He finally pulls Jason’s zip down with a rasping sound.

Oh _shit_.

Jason’s dick is hard, and it’s wet where it’s pushing against his underwear. Alex’s fingers shake as he pushes Jason’s underwear down, and Jason lifts his hips a little to make it easier. And then Jason’s dick is in his hand. For a second Alex is so overwhelmed that he doesn’t even register the fact that the hem of his dress is now pushed up high and Jason is tugging at his briefs. He lifts his hips just like Jason did, and suddenly they’re both sitting there, wide-eyed, holding each other’s dicks.

It’s terrifying.

Alex doesn’t know what universe he’s in right now.

He doesn’t know what to do next.

Then Jason starts to jerk him off with short, uncertain strokes, and yeah, okay, his dick knows what it wants at least. He grinds a little into Jason’s touch, then remembers he should be doing the same thing for Jason, and tightens his grip on Jason’s dick and starts to stroke.

A part of Alex wants to close his eyes, but another part of him doesn’t want to miss the look on Jason’s face. Jason’s breathing hard, and biting his lip, and he’s wearing a frown like he’s trying really hard to concentrate on a complicated math problem or something.

“Alex,” he whispers as his hips lift yet again. “Oh, _shit_.”

Jason shudders and jerks as he comes, and Alex is too amazed to feel more than a twinge of embarrassment. The sudden smell of cum, sharp in the warm air of the back seat, makes his wolf want to howl.

“Okay,” Jason whispers, tugging Alex’s hand off his wet dick. “Okay, just let me…”

And then he’s moving suddenly, his pants sliding off his ass, sliding down onto the floor, and Alex doesn’t even know what he’s doing until— “Tell me if you don’t want to, okay?”—until suddenly his mouth is closing over the head of Alex’s dick.

Alex squeaks in surprise, and grabs Jason’s hair. Except instead of pushing him away, he pulls him closer, because it feels so good. Jason’s mouth is hot and wet, and his _tongue_ … Jesus, his tongue.

Holy fuck.

Jason’s blowing him. This is a blowjob.

It’s over in seconds, probably, and then Jason is wiping his mouth on his sleeve and Alex is tugging his dress back down, and everything feels wet and messy, and when they finally climb out of the car they both look absolutely wrecked. It’s over in seconds, but they just might have been the best seconds of Alex’s entire life.

When Jason finally gets him home and walks him to the front door, his goodbye kiss is so sweet and chaste that Alex can’t stop giggling. It takes him a while to compose himself enough to go inside.

“How was it?” his mom asks him as he heads up the stairs.

Alex hurries, hoping she doesn’t catch his scent and realize exactly what he’s been doing.

“It’s was good!” he calls back down. “It was perfect!”

Everything is perfect.


	11. Chapter 11

(15)

 

On the Friday after the dance, Jason’s in a great mood at lunch.

“So, you’ve got lacrosse tonight, right?”

“Yeah.” Alex steals one of his fries.

“Did your mom say if you could stay over?”

“Yeah, she’s cool with it.”

Jason grins. “Awesome. My dad left me way more pizza money than we need.”

Alex isn’t really sure what sort of pack thing the Cormacks are going to in Los Angeles. The Cormacks are a really small pack compared to the Hales. The can all fit in a single people mover. Sometimes Jason mentions other packs they’re related to, but most of them are out of state. Jason thinks the L.A. thing is kind of a family reunion, and kind of pack politics, but he’s not that interested either. The important thing is pizza and a sleepover.

“So I’ll pick up Simon from school, then we’ll come and watch your game, then we can go and get pizza!”

“Sounds like a plan,” Alex grins.

They fist bump.

It’s a boy day.

 

***

 

Alex isn’t really expecting to do anything except warm the bench for the game. It’s getting close to the end of the season, and the Cyclones actually have a chance of making the finals. Alex is pretty sure Finstock doesn’t want to risk that by putting his less valuable players out there. So he’s really not expecting it when Finstock calls Liam out of the game and then smacks Alex on the back of the head.

“Get out there, Hale!”

Alex jogs out onto the field to take up his position as midfielder, glancing back at the stands as he moves. His dad and Derek are watching the game this week. There’s a space on the stands next to them. Alex can’t see Jason or Simon. They must be running late.

He grips his crosse and tries not to make a dick of himself. It’s kind of his only game plan, and has been since he made the team, but it seems to be working okay for him so far. He’s not the best player in the team by a long shot, but he’s not a total disaster either. It’s cool. Alex has only ever wanted to be average.

He manages to get the ball at one point and one of the guys from the other team body slams him, hard, but by the time he hits the ground he’s already passed the ball to Jackson. Pain flares, but it’s already gone again when he climbs to his feet.

Jackson gets a goal off Alex’s pass, so fuck yeah! Alex smacks his helmet to readjust it, and grins at the guy who knocked him down. They can actually win this thing.

Finstock thinks so too. He’s screaming and yelling at them from the sidelines. It’s a mix of abuse and encouragement and desperate entreaties to a higher power.

Alex is playing well. Jackson always talks about being in the zone, and Alex is starting to think that maybe he’s actually in it for once too. He’s surprised when he hears Finstock bellowing his name. When he looks over, Finstock’s gesturing him over to the bench.

He jogs over.

His dad and Derek are standing with Finstock. So is Liam, looking ready to go on again.

“You’re out, Hale,” Finstock says, clapping him on the shoulder.

“Why, Coach?” Alex asks.

Finstock doesn’t answer, just pushes Liam back toward the game. 

Alex tugs his helmet off. For the first time he really looks at his dad and at Derek. Their expressions are tense, and Alex’s stomach twists. “Dad?”

“Let’s get you out of here,” James says, and that’s when Alex knows something is really wrong.

Derek and James steer him away from the stands. Derek carries Alex’s bag.

“Dad, what’s going on?” Alex asks as they hurry him toward the parking lot. “What’s wrong?” He twists his head to look back at the game. “Where’s Jason?”

James stops. He puts a hand on Alex’s shoulder. His face is grave. “Alex, I’m so sorry. There’s been an accident.”

 

***

 

Time stops working the way it’s supposed to.

Seconds drag out into years but, when Alex blinks, eons pass.

He stares out the window as the town slowly gives way to the woods.

The Cormacks were driving to Los Angeles in that people mover that fitted the whole pack. There was an accident with a petrol tanker. A fireball. A lot of people are dead. All of the Comacks are.

It only takes a single day, a single moment, to destroy a universe.

Alex blinks again, his eyes stinging.

It doesn’t make any sense that something like that can happen.

It can’t have.

It’s not real.

It can’t be _real_.

It happened hours ago, maybe even when Jason was laughing and messing around at lunch. It had definitely already happened by the time Alex was texting Jason in English to tell him that if he got pineapple on their pizza they were totally breaking up. And when Alex was on the lacrosse field having his best game ever, a deputy was with Jason, telling him the words that would rip his universe apart.

Alex blinks again and tears slide down his face. He’s not even sure who he’s crying for. He’s scared that the tears aren’t just for Jason’s parents and his pack, or even for Jason and Simon. He’s scared that some of them are for him, and they’re selfish, because everything was awesome, and this was the best day ever, and he and Jason were supposed to get pizza and play video games and draw this awesome day out into an entire awesome weekend. And whatever is happening now, Alex doesn’t know how to deal with it. He’s so scared he won’t know how to be what Jason needs, when Jason has always known how to be what Alex needed.

When they reach the house, Alex climbs out of the car with jerking movements.

The house is quiet when they get inside. The house is never quiet.

James and Derek head toward the library, and Alex follows. He can’t breathe properly. The library door squeals dully on its hinges when James opens it.

Jason is sitting on the couch, his hands folded in his lap. He looks up when the door opens, but his gaze is empty, lost, like he’s not really seeing anything at all. He looks brittle, hollow. He looks like he’s not really there at all.

Talia is sitting in the armchair, with Simon on her lap. He’s curled up against her, looking smaller than his seven years. His body is shaking as Talia holds him, but Alex can’t hear his sobs. Maybe he’s not even crying anymore. Maybe he just can’t stop shaking.

Talia smiles unsteadily at Alex.

For a second Alex just stands there, unsure of what to do. Then Jason’s blank gaze lands on him again, and Alex hurries forward and sits on the couch beside him. He’s still in his lacrosse uniform, still stinky and sweaty from the game, but he doesn’t care. And Jason probably doesn’t even notice.

“Hey,” he whispers.

Jason blinks at him. “Hey, Alex. I’m sorry about the sleepover.”

It’s so ridiculous that Alex fights the urge to laugh. “I don’t care about that.”

Jason blinks again, then frowns. “Alex, I don’t—” Then his hollow mask crumbles and he’s crying, and Alex pulls him into an embrace and cries with him.

Jason’s whole world is collapsing, and there’s nothing Alex can do except try and hold onto him.

 

***

 

Grief and shock make everything numb, like trying to move underwater. Everything is dull and sluggish. Everything is muted. When Alex wakes up the next morning, with Jason and Simon wedged into his bed with him, he feels normal for about half a second, and then he _remembers_ and hates himself that he ever forgot.

There’s no timetable on grief, but Alex wants to shake it off already. He wants desperately for things to go back to they way they were, but it feels like they’ve slipped into some strange otherworld where things will always be tainted by this, always dragged down by the weight of this. Was it only yesterday they were smiling and laughing? Already Alex can’t remember what that felt like.

The weekend is horrible. It’s going through the motions. It’s faking it. It’s eating meals even though he isn’t hungry and he can’t taste anything. It’s watching TV even though he might as well be blind and deaf. It’s being numb, just numb. It’s coming up from underwater only briefly enough to cry as the horror hits him all over again, then sinking under once more.

And if this is how Alex feels, he can’t even imagine how much worse it is for Jason.

He wakes up in the early hours of Monday morning to find Jason holding onto him. He’s crying. Alex reaches up to touch his face, and Jason jerks away.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles.

“What are you sorry for?” Alex whispers, his heart aching.

“Touching you.”

Oh. Because Alex is a boy today.

“It’s okay,” he says, and folds his arms around Jason. “That’s not what this is.”

Jason’s face is damp when he nuzzles it against Alex’s throat.

Alex rubs his back until they both fall asleep again.

Talia doesn’t send them to school on Monday. Jason and Simon curl up on the couch in front of the TV, neither of them really watching it. Alex stays with them, only leaving to fetch snacks that nobody really wants. Alex feels useless, but he doesn’t know what else to do.

He trails out to the kitchen at some point during the day, and finds Talia and Derek and Stiles sitting at the table with mugs of tea.

“How are they doing?” Talia asks.

Alex shrugs.

“And how about you?” she asks.

Alex frowns a little. It’s a weird question. Alex is okay. He’s still got his pack. His family didn’t burn. “I wish I could make them feel better.”

“I know you do, sweetheart.” Talia runs her hand over his hair. “But only time will do that. All you can do is give them a shoulder to cry on when they need it.”

It doesn’t seem like enough. Not nearly enough.

“What’s going to happen now, Mom?”

Talia exchanges a look with Derek. “Child Services are making arrangements.”

Alex’s stomach drops. “What arrangements?”

“They have relatives, Alex.”

“Not in Beacon Hills,” Alex says, feeling sick as the implication starts to sink in. “The Cormacks are affiliated with _us_ , Mom.”

“They have relatives,” Talia repeats.

Alex glances at the doorway as Jason appears.

“Are you going to send us away, Alpha Hale?” Jason’s face is pale, the dark shadows under his eyes pronounced.

“Jason, your mother’s pack—”

“My mom chose to leave her pack when she mated with my dad,” Jason cuts in, his voice wavering. “We never even had anything to do with my mom’s old pack. We don’t even know them.”

“They’re your pack now,” Talia tells him. “They’ll look after you.”

“I want to stay in Beacon Hills.”

“Jason,” Talia says. “I’m so sorry.”

Jason doesn’t say anything. He just looks at Alex, and then turns and walks out of the kitchen.

No.

It isn’t fair.

It isn’t fair that Jason has lost everyone, and now Alex is losing Jason too.

It isn’t fair.

But Alex is too numb to find any new tears right now.

 

***

 

A week later, a black SUV crawls to a stop outside the house.

Jason and Simon are waiting, meager belongings packed and ready to go.

And Alex can’t breathe.

He can’t breathe.

He wants to scream and yell and punch the walls, but how can he? He can’t even breathe. He steps away from the windows and sits on the couch beside Jason, and picks at a loose thread in the hem of his dress.

There’s a strange tension in the house that Alex can’t read. Everyone is on edge. Derek has been growly all morning, and Stiles and Lydia have been sent to the humans’ settlement for the day. Alan Deaton has turned up too, wearing a strained look that sits at odds with his usually serene expression. Talia and James have been holding hushed conversations for hours, and Peter, home from Stanford for the weekend, has been aggressively pacing.

Alex shivers when he hears the knock on the door.

A low exchange of words follows. Strangers’ voices.

“I’ll text you every day,” Jason says. His voice is a monotone.

“Me too,” Alex whispers.

The tread of footsteps.

Alex looks up.

Deaton and Talia enter first, with two men behind them. An old man with sharp eyes, and a younger one, although his hair is graying, wearing an expression that might be sympathetic.

Alex hates them both.

“Jason,” the old man says. His voice has an impatient edge to it. “Simon. Get your things. We’ve got a long drive ahead of us.”

“You’re welcome to stay for dinner,” Talia says, her expression hardening.

The old man curls his lip and opens his mouth.

The younger one cuts him off before he can speak. “Thank you for the offer of hospitality, Alpha Hale, but we really need to be going.”

His words break something inside Alex. He grabs for Jason’s hand, tears sliding down his cheeks. “Jason!”

Jason is crying too. He leans into Alex’s embrace and presses their cheeks together. And then their lips. When they break apart, the old man is staring at them in disgust.

“I love you, Alex,” Jason whispers.

Alex cries harder.

It’s only later, much later, that Alex realizes he never said he loved him back.

 

***

 

In the middle of the night, Alex finds Peter on the front porch. Peter’s leaning on the railing, smoking a cigarette. From the number of butts in the planter box beside him, he’s been doing it a while.

“Okay, pup?” he asks.

Alex doesn’t bother answer, just slides himself under Peter’s arm.

“When I was a kid,” Peter says with a sigh, “Mary caused quite a scandal by choosing to mate with Ian. A _Cormack_. An alpha with hardly any pack, hardly any money, and hardly any prospects. An alpha whose father owned a convenience store, instead of a territory.” He exhales, and smoke dissipates on the air. “But he showed them. He was on the city council by the time he was thirty, and he didn’t play dirty politics to get there. He might have only had a small pack, but he allied it with ours. He was a good man, Alex, and he raised good kids.”

“Why did Jason have to go?” Alex whispers, his voice breaking. “He didn’t even know his mom’s pack!”

“Because it’s pack law,” Peter says at last. He sighs again. “Because the universe is a bitch.” His voice takes on a bitter tone. “But mostly because those assholes, the Argents, would never miss a chance to fuck us over any way they can.”

 


	12. Chapter 12

(15)

 

 

Days later, weeks later, and Alex still feels like he’s walking underwater.

 _“I’ll text you every day,”_ Jason said, but he hasn’t, and when Alex tried to call him a robotic voice told him the number was no longer in service.

Everything aches.

At school, his grades drop. He loses his place on the team because he doesn’t go to practice. He doesn’t wear dresses anymore. He doesn’t spend ages trying to make his hair look nice in the mornings. For the first few days he checked his email every couple of hours, thinking that if Jason didn’t have his phone anymore—it was on his dad’s plan, probably—that he’d contact him through there.

He didn’t.

He still hasn’t.

Alex doesn’t know a lot about the Argents. He knows that they used to live in Beacon Hills too, and back when Alex’s grandfather had been the alpha of the Hale pack there had been such animosity between the Hales and the Argents that there had almost been a pack war. He remembers it because when Kate Argent set fire to Derek’s car with Derek still in it, people said that maybe it wasn’t just because she was batshit crazy. Maybe she was batshit crazy and also trying to settle an old score in a fight the Hales thought was already over.

The Argents left town after that.

Alex hadn’t known that Mary Cormack had been an Argent.

He hadn’t known that Jason was related to them at all.

The Argents live in Phoenix now. They’ve become the most powerful pack in all of Arizona. They still hate the Hales, apparently. Because of bad blood and old quarrels, and because Derek pressed charges against Kate and all the money in the world couldn’t make it go away for them, and Gerard, their alpha, still holds a grudge about it.

At first everyone tells Alex not to worry, that Jason’s probably just settling in, that he’s at a new place and a new school now, that he’s in a new pack, and to give it time. Except all time does is make the ache inside Alex grow.

All time does is hurt him.

He sits alone at lunch again. He knows he’d be welcome with Jason’s friends, or back with Nolan and Hannah and the others, or maybe even with some of the guys from the team, but it seems like too much effort to fake a smile or hold a conversation, so he doesn’t bother. He _wants_ to be alone.

So when someone slams a lunch tray down on his table one day, and people sit down on either side of him, he starts in surprise. He looks up to see Sean staring at him and, on his other side, Charlie.

“Hey, freak,” Sean says, his thin mouth curling into a smile. “Not so tough without your boyfriend, are you?”

Alex is too tired for this bullshit. “Fuck off, Sean.”

Charlie leans in close and inhales. “You smell like a _bitch_.”

For a second Alex feels the same spike of panic he did when he read that note, all those years ago, and the same horrible gut-wrenching betrayal. He blinks, and sees the word again, written five times in five different hands.

_BITCH._

He can still hear their laughter.

He hunches over. “You can fuck off too.”

“Aw.” Sean grins. “Look, Charlie. The little bitch gets huffy when she’s got nobody to mount her!”

Something in Alex breaks. No, _snaps_.

These assholes want a reaction?

Alex gives them one.

He growls, claws coming out instinctively, and swipes at Sean. He feels his claws catch in flesh, and sees Sean’s shocked face, his cheek opened up and blood welling, before Sean flails back and ends up on the floor.

The wolf is in control now, and she’s hurt and cornered, and more fucking angry than she’s ever been in her life.

Alex throws himself on Sean. He swipes with his claws again, this time shredding his shirt. With his other hand he grabs Sean’s hair, and pulls his head up only to slam it back onto the floor.

He’s dimly aware of other kids shouting and yelling, of chairs being pushed back and an excited audience forming around them.

Charlie gets an arm around his throat, and tries to pull him off.  “You fucking psycho! You fucking psycho bitch!”

Alex can hardly breathe, but he slams Sean’s head into the floor again. He wants to hear his skull crack.

And then there’s a suddenly flurry of movement, and someone hauls Alex away. He’s struggling and growling, wolfed out, but it’s _Danny_. It’s Danny who’s got him. Danny who’s pushing him up against the wall and holding him there with the warm weight of his body.

“Alex,” Danny says. “Alex, settle down. Just settle down.”

Alex stares over his shoulder.

Jackson is pulling Sean to his feet. Sean’s covered in blood but his wounds are already healing. He looks shocked. He looks maybe even a little scared, like the kid Alex remembers from when they were nine and watched a horror movie they weren’t supposed to. Then his gaze lands on Alex, and it transforms again. It hardens until it’s full of hate.

Alex lifts his chin and glares back.

Then the teachers arrive on scene, and Alex is hauled up to the principal’s office.

 

***

 

“This isn’t you, Alex,” Talia says on the drive home.

Alex has been suspended for two weeks for fighting. He doesn’t care.

He shrugs and stares out the window.

“I know you’re hurting, but—”

“You don’t know how it feels,” Alex cuts in. “You don’t know what it’s like to be _me_!” A part of him flinches at having taken that tone with his alpha, but he _needed_ to say it. He needs her to know. “You have no idea what my life is like! You shouldn’t have let them take him!”  

Talia’s fingers tighten on the steering wheel, but she doesn’t say anything else. She doesn’t even yell at him for getting suspended, which should feel like a relief, but it doesn’t. Nothing makes sense anymore.

 

***

 

“I was fifteen.”

Alex looks up as Derek sits down on the ground beside him.

He’s been sitting out in the Preserve for hours now. It’s dark. He wondered who they’d send after him once he missed dinner. Of course it’s Derek.

“What?”

“I was fifteen,” Derek repeats. “Kate was older, exciting. I was flattered.” He sighs, and stretches out his legs. “I didn’t tell anyone, because I didn’t want Kate to get in trouble. Except Peter. I told Peter. He told me I should go for it.”

 _Ew_. Alex makes a face.

“Peter has this theory about the wild ones being incredible in bed,” Derek says, wrinkling his nose. “Don’t…don’t ever go to him for advice about sex, okay?”

Alex wasn’t planning on it.

“So yeah, Kate had this reputation of being a real wild child,” Derek says. “But it turned out she was also crazy as fuck. Like legitimately psychotic. I thought we were going up to the lookout so that we could, well, you know, and the next thing you know I’m locked in the car and she’d set fire to it.”

Alex remembers how Derek had smelled like smoke and gasoline for days, and how it had taken hours for the shiny burns on his skin to vanish, even with wolf healing.

“Mom says that relationships between us and Argents had always been difficult.” Derek runs a hand through his hair. “And that was kind of the final straw, I guess? Gerard was beyond pissed that we wouldn’t drop the charges. He tried to attack Mom in a council meeting, in front of half the town. There wasn’t a lot he could do to rehabilitate his reputation after that. Kate might have been ill, but he’d been poisoning her against us for years.”

“But why?” Alex asks. “What did we ever do to them?”

Derek shrugs. “Nobody really remembers. It started the same way these things always do, I guess. Territory. We took some of theirs once, or they took some of ours, and suddenly you’re looking at a pack war. It never got to that with the Argents, but Mom did wonder if that’s what Kate was really trying to do that night. Cross a line that couldn’t be uncrossed again. Start a real war.” His tone is doubtful.

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Derek says. “I think that Kate already believed we were in the middle of a war, and that maybe, in her own way, she was trying to end it instead.”

“You don’t sound very angry about it.”

Derek meets his gaze in the darkness. “I was, for a while. I was angry and I was ashamed as well, for falling for someone who was so obviously playing me. In the end I had to make a conscious decision to let it go. Anger doesn’t help. It can’t be your anchor.”

Alex shifts a little closer. “I got angry today.”

“I know.”

“I’m not sorry.” Alex juts his chin out. “I’m _not_. I _hate_ them.”

“You hate them, or you hate the fact that Jason went away?” Derek asks quietly.

Alex hunches over. “Can’t I hate both?”

“Yeah.” Derek puts an arm around his shoulders. “Yeah, you can.”

“He said he’d text me every day, and he hasn’t, not once.” Alex closes his eyes briefly. “I don’t even know if he’s _okay_ , Derek! He’s living in Arizona with a crazy pack that hates us, and I just want to know if he’s okay.”

Derek tugs him closer. “He’ll be fine. The Argents are…they’ll not all like Gerard and Kate, okay? They might not like us much, but they’re not bad people. Mary was one of them, remember?”

“I just want to talk to him. I miss him.” Alex scrubs at his face.

“I know you do, Alex. I know.”

“I hate it,” Alex says. “I hate everything.”

Derek just holds him. “I know.”

 

***

 

Weeks turn into months, and Alex still doesn’t hear anything from Jason. He’s so used to the ache inside him now, the empty space that nothing else will fill, that it becomes a part of him. He’s withdrawn, even with the pack surrounding him at home, and at school he becomes a loner.

Malia graduates.

So do Danny and Jackson.

Sean and Charlie, of course, take that as a green light to step up their bullshit campaign against Alex. He doesn’t care that much, really. Some days he takes it, some days he ignores it, and some days he lashes out. He ends up at the principal’s office a lot.

That’s where he meets Althea. She has dyed blue hair and piercings. Alex doesn’t know what shit she gets into that she’s always there too. He doesn’t ask. He just agrees to skip school with her one afternoon, and that’s how he finds himself sitting in an alley downtown with a bunch of kids who are older than him, drinking wolfsbane-infused vodka.

It feels a little dangerous—he doesn’t know these kids, and he doesn’t have to know them to know that this is a really bad idea—but it also feels good to so demonstrably not give a fuck. To get a buzz on even though it’s a weekday afternoon, and smash bottles on the ground, and smoke cigarettes and be as unhappy and angry and confused about life as he wants. It makes him feel free. It makes him feel a little more alive than he has since Jason left.

On a boy day, he makes out with Althea in the backseat of Troy’s car while Troy and the others sit around and drink and smoke and laugh.

On a girl day, he makes out with Troy while Althea watches.

Alex feels _reckless_ , but he also feels like he’s in control. For the first time he’s the one making decisions, he’s the one doing things, he’s not just standing there dumbly while things happen. He’s not just waiting for the next blow. If he wants to make out with different people, if he wants to skip school, if he wants to get drunk, then those are _his_ choices. And, okay, he doesn’t need to watch some afterschool special to know that these are the wrong choices, but what did making good choices ever get Alex that the universe didn’t snatch away again?

Nothing.

Fucking nothing.

So this is good. This makes sense. Hanging out with these kids is good. They’re older than him, but they don’t make a big deal out of it. They’re angrier than him too, and that makes Alex feel better about hurting the way he does, because he knows they all started off hurting too, but if he can be a little more like them then he can slowly hone that hurt into something sharper, turn the edges of it out so that it cuts others, and not himself. He wants that. He needs that.

He wants to be one of these kids. He wants people to look at him and know he doesn’t give a fuck about anything. He wants to surround himself with people who won’t always ask how he’s doing, or if he’s okay, or make vague promises that things will get better.

How? How will things get better? Will Gerard Argent forget that he hates the Hales and suddenly let Jason contact Alex? Will he let Jason come back?

No.

And is there some other kid at Beacon Hills High, or anywhere in the world, who is as open and accepting as Jason Cormack?

No, and Alex wouldn’t want that other kid anyway.

He wants Jason, but that’s not going to happen.

So he hangs out with Althea and Troy and the others now, and just doesn’t give a fuck. At home, he lets the worried gazes of the pack slide right over him. He lets his parents’ carefully chosen words turn to dust on the air. He curls his lip when anyone tries to hug him. He’s not weak anymore. He’s never going to be weak again.

The weak only get hurt, and Alex is done with that for good.

Five weeks after they meet, he loses his virginity to Troy in the abandoned railway depot downtown. It’s painful, and he cries, and afterward he smokes enough cigarettes to convince himself they’re the only reason his throat aches and his eyes are stinging.

 


	13. Chapter 13

(16)

 

On the morning of his sixteenth birthday Alex wakes up and blinks at the ceiling and waits to feel more grown up. He doesn’t. He reaches under his pillow for his phone and checks his text messages.

There’s one from Stiles: _HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!_

Derek should never have gotten Stiles a phone. He has no concept of data usage.

There one from Althea too, telling him where they’re gonna meet up later on. Usually they’d meet up at school, but she’s been suspended again, so that’s out. It’s cool. Alex will see her later.

He checks his email too. Nothing new, just some discount offer from a site he’s tried to unsubscribe from a gazillion times but won’t take no for an answer. Alex trashes it.

Down the hall, he can hear someone in the bathroom already. He waits until the water is turned off before he climbs out of bed. Then he heads down the hallway, just in time to see Derek appear in a cloud of steam, wrapped in a towel.

Derek pulls him into a hug and scents him. “Happy birthday, Alex.”

“Thanks.” He smiles. He’s gotten good at faking smiles. Good enough for everyone to think he’s on his way to getting better anyway, to getting back to being the old Alex. Alex doesn’t know what was so good about the old Alex that they all want him back.

He showers quickly, dresses for school, then heads down for breakfast. Aunt Kaylee is making pancakes. Alex gets a stack with a candle stuck in it.

“Your mom will be back tonight,” James tells him. “Think you can wait until then for presents?”

“Sure,” Alex tells him, smiling again.

Talia is away at some pack summit in Los Angeles. She’s taken Laura with her, since Laura will be the next Hale Pack Alpha, and Deaton as the pack emissary.  She’s also taken Scott, because she wants to get him familiar with dealing with hierarchy and tradition. Because he was bitten, not born, he sometimes has trouble figuring stuff like that out. His instincts can be a little off.

Alex sits and eats his pancakes, and wonders if there will be any Argents at the summit. Of course there will be. Of course. And he bets Talia won’t even ask the Argents about Jason and Simon, because politics and diplomacy are more important than Jason and Simon, and Alex too.

His scent must sour a little with resentment, because Uncle William, sitting next to him, looks at him worriedly for a moment.

“I have an algebra test today,” Alex says. “On my _birthday_.”

It’s not even a lie. Wolves can’t lie. But Alex has no intention of being at school to sit the test.

William’s face softens with a smile. “Good luck with that!”

If he’d looked a little longer, maybe he would have seen Alex’s smile falter, but his attention is caught when Jacob knocks his glass of juice over, and it goes everywhere. There’s a flurry of activity as the adults rush to clean up the mess.

“Whoops,” Jacob says, face crinkled up. “’m sorry!”

It’s easy, in a large pack, to get a little lost in the crowd. It used to make Alex feel small, but now he uses it to his advantage. There’s enough going on that it’s easy to slip into the background.

Too easy.

He watches as Stiles and Derek eat breakfast practically sitting on each other’s laps. When Derek’s happiness was on the line, and Stiles’s too, the pack opened up their territory to a bunch of humans, like it was nothing. Talia decided it was going to happen, and it did, because her word is law. So why didn’t she do it for Jason and Simon?

Alex gets up and goes into the kitchen to put his plate into the sink.

Logically, he knows. When the humans came to live in the Preserve, there were no Argents going to kick up a stink about it. There was no Child Services or next of kin or rules and regulations to follow. But that doesn’t make it any easier, really. When Derek and Stiles wanted to be together, the Hales made it possible for everyone to get their happy ending. And Alex, whose idea of a happy ending is so much less complicated than hiding a massive group of supposedly extinct humans, gets nothing.

He remembers when he was younger, half-dreaming of running away into the wilderness. Maybe he and Jason should have done that.

Or maybe it’s been six months and he needs to stop thinking about Jason. Jason’s obviously stopped thinking about him. Even if he doesn’t have a phone or a laptop, he’d have access to a computer in school. And even if he doesn't remember Alex’s email, he could easily look up Talia’s from the city council and send a message via her.

Some days he tries to remember the way Jason smiled at him, like Alex has somehow lit up his whole world just by being in it. And then he remembers the way that Gerard Argent sneered at him like he was something disgusting, a boy wearing a dress, and wonders how long it took him to poison Jason against him.

 

***

 

Alex ditches school after homeroom, and heads for the railway depot. When he gets there, Althea is stoned off her head on something, and insists of giving him a kiss for every year he’s been born. She loses count at five. It’s kind of funny.

Alex is having more of a boy day than a girl day. He’s enough of a boy that when he’s slumped down on the old couch that someone pulled from a dumpster, and Troy reaches over and gropes him through his jeans, the thrill that runs through him isn’t a good one. He bats Troy’s hand away and shifts enough to put some space between them.

“Fucking cock tease,” Troy says, but there’s no heat in it.

Alex gives him the finger.

A while later Emery turns up with a pizza, and they all sit in a circle on the dirty floor and eat. Troy offers Alex a drink, but he shakes his head.

“Nah, my pack’s having my birthday party this afternoon. They’ll kill me if they smell that on me.”

Alex knows for a fact that his mom and dad have smelled alcohol on him a few times, but it’s mostly been on Friday nights or weekends, so it’s easy enough to play it off like he was just hanging with some guys from the lacrosse team or whatever, and, yeah, there was a keg, but Alex only had a little. It’s what normal teenagers do, right? And his parents want Alex to be a normal teenager so badly that they actually let it slide. He promises to be careful, to be _good_. He hasn’t been suspended in ages. He covers his absences with forged sicks notes, a trick the school hasn’t picked up on yet, and he’s careful not to miss too many days, though he knows that it's only a matter of time before he’s busted. He’s surprised he hasn’t been already, honestly, since Matty’s at the high school now too. Matty thinks Alex is eating his lunch in the library though, and as long as Alex is there to meet him after school every day, why would he think any different? Alex spent so long being the good kid that it gets him a lot of leverage now he needs it. Nobody expects him to be skipping school or drinking or hanging around with a bad crowd, so nobody _sees_ it.

But turning up buzzed on his birthday? No way will that shit fly.

“Oh, yeah, birthday boy,” Troy says with a wide grin. “Sweet sixteen, right?”

Alex picks an olive off his pizza and flicks it at him.

“I got you something,” Troy says.

“What’d you get me?” Alex asks, eyes narrow. “Fuck off, I don’t believe you.”

Troy takes something out of his pocket and waves it around. Is it a card? He’s moving it too quickly for Alex to get a look.

“Show me!”

Troy laughs as Alex snatches it out of his hands.

It’s a fake I.D. It says that Alex is _eighteen_.

“Eighteen, really?” He makes a face. “No offence, but what good is eighteen?”

“Please, like you’d ever pass for twenty-one.” Troy tugs his hair. “This is just to get you inside the clubs, dude. Once you’re inside, it’s easy enough to get wasted.”

Alex looks down at the I.D. thoughtfully. His solemn face, the same photograph as from his school I.D., stares back at him. “Really?”

“Dude, I swear,” Troy says. “I’ll take you on the weekend and show you, okay?”

Alex shrugs. “I don’t have any money or anything.”

“Don’t need it,” Troy says, swigging on his bottle of vodka. “I’ll show you what to do.”

Alex tucks the I.D. in his pocket.

 

***

 

Alex makes a show of doing his homework at the dining room table and ignoring the stack of presents at the end. Stiles is sitting with him, jiggling impatiently.

“Come on, are you finished yet?”

“We have to wait until Mom gets home,” Alex tells him mildly.

“Derek! Can Alex open a present yet?” Stiles yells. “Just one?”

“No!” Derek calls back from the kitchen. “Leave him alone!”

That elicits a rare smile that Alex doesn’t need to fake.

When he hears his mom’s car approaching, Alex packs up his books and takes them upstairs. When he comes down again, the pack is waiting for him in the dining room. There’s cake and snacks, and yeah, the presents.

It’s not a big party, really. It’s the middle of the week. Peter is at Stanford, and Cora and Malia are away at college, and Aunt Clare is visiting a friend out east. It’s not unusual for people to miss birthdays. In a pack the size of the Hales, it’d be impossible for everybody to make every birthday, so Alex doesn’t really mind. A few of the humans turn up too, which is kind of nice.

He gets pretty good presents: a new phone, some clothes, the video game he wanted, and some books. He eats his cake and listens to Talia talk about the pack summit. She doesn’t mention the Argents, but she looks tired, and stressed. So does Laura.

As soon as he can, Alex escapes upstairs with his presents.

 

***

 

In the middle of the night Alex’s door creaks open. He’s still awake, lying with his comforter pulled up over his head. It’s his mom. He can tell by her scent. Alex keeps his breathing steady. If she thinks he’s asleep, she’ll go away again.

Instead, he hears the tread of heavier footsteps in the hallway.

“Talia?”

“I don’t know what to do.” His mom’s voice is soft, weary.

James sighs.

“I try to talk to him, and he pulls away. He pulls away from everyone.”

“He’s a teenager, love. That’s what they do. You remember Derek at this age? Or _Patrick_?”

“This is different,” Talia says. “This is… this is _Alex_.”

His name sounds like heartbreak on her lips.

James sighs again. “Come on. Come to bed.”

His door creaks shut again.

 

***

 

Full moon.

It lies fat and heavy in the sky, and Alex whines before she lifts her voice into a howl. The ground is cold and damp underneath her paws. She pads along beside Derek and Scott, stopping every now and then to inspect a scent or follow a mouse’s scuttling escape through the undergrowth. Stiles stumbles along behind them.

The howl of the alpha freezes her.

Derek knocks his muzzle against her ribs, the gesture as clear as any words: _Mom wants you. Hurry up._

The alpha is a huge black wolf. She towers over Alex, and Alex shrinks back a little. When she was a cub, her mom’s size meant one thing only: safety. But now, a whine building up inside her, Alex is afraid. The boy might be able to mask most of what he feels, but the wolf can’t. She trembles under the alpha’s scrutiny.

Talia flashes her eyes.

Alex does the unthinkable.

She turns and bolts back toward the house.

“Alex?” Stiles yells, before the howling of the pack drowns out his voice. “Alex!”

 

***

 

“Alex,” his dad says through the door. “We need to talk about this.”

Alex is sitting in the shower, even though the water has long since run cold. He’s shaking, but can’t bring himself to get out. He’s got his eyes closed, so he doesn’t need to look at his body: his flat chest, his _dick_. The wolf inside him is whining. She hasn’t shut up since they ran from Talia.

He doesn’t know what’s worse. Running from his mom, or running from his alpha.

“Alex, open the door, please.”

Alex finally pulls himself to his feet. He steps out of the shower and wraps himself in a towel. He shuffles over to the door and opens it.

His dad’s face is grave with worry. “What happened out there?” He reaches out and touches Alex’s shoulder. “Jesus, you’re freezing.”

He bundles Alex down the hallway and into his bedroom. Alex dives under his covers, still wrapped in the towel, still shivering. His dad sits down on his bed, and rubs circles into his back.

“It’s been rough, I know.”

No. Nobody knows. They say they do, but they don’t. If they did, if they’d had the same hole ripped open inside them, they’d do something about it. They wouldn’t have just sat there while the Argents drove away with Jason and Simon.

 “I’m sorry,” Alex mumbles into his pillow, because he doesn’t know what else to say. “I just wanted to be left alone.”

His dad’s hand stills for a moment. “That not how pack works, Alex. We’re worried about you.”

But not worried enough to see what’s going on with him. Alex feels a perverse burst of pleasure at that, of power. He’s pretty much been in freefall for months, but the idea that good little Alex could be doing half the stuff he’s doing is so alien to them that they don’t even see it.

“I’m okay,” Alex says, knowing his dad can hear the uptick in his heartbeat that says it’s a lie. “I mean, I’m figuring some stuff out. I am. Will you tell Mom I’m sorry?”

“Okay,” his dad says after a long silence. “Okay.”

Alex waits for him to leave, but he doesn’t.

“You should go downstairs,” James says. “Stiles made you a hot chocolate.”

Alex snorts. “Must be an _emergency_.”

It was supposed to be a joke, but his dad misses it.

“It felt like one,” James says quietly. “Was it?”

“I don’t know.”

No uptick there. That’s nothing but the truth, and it doesn’t do anything to lift the weight on Alex’s chest, or ease the ache inside him.

When his dad finally leaves him alone, Alex goes downstairs and drinks his hot chocolate on the couch with Stiles, and they wait for the rest of the pack to come back from the run.

Stiles holds his hand, but Alex wishes it was someone else’s warm fingers entwined with his own.

 


	14. Chapter 14

(17)

 

“Well,” a familiar arch voice announces, “I’m all for grand gestures of futility and nihilistic self-destruction, but don’t you think this is kind of clichéd and pathetic?”

Alex squints up at him. “Peter?”

It can’t be Peter. Alex is just out to have some fun, and there is no way that Peter belongs in that scenario. What happened to Troy? And there was another guy. What happened to them?

Peter comes into focus as he squats down. His voice is suddenly serious. “Do you even know where you are, pup?”

Not exactly, but it stinks pretty bad. Like vomit. And maybe piss? Alex tries to look around, but no…everything swims out of focus again, and his stomach lurches like he’s going to be sick. Sick _again_. Oh, okay, so the vomit is his.

“Nooo?”

Peter puts a hand on the side of his clammy face. “You’re in the bathroom at The Jungle. Nice fake I.D., by the way. Very convincing.”

“What’re…” Alex holds his breath as the urge of vomit rises again. “What’re you doin’ here?”

“One of your so-called friends called the house when you passed out,” Peter tells him. “You’re lucky I picked up instead of your mother.”

The Jungle? Alex sort of remembers something like that. He sort of remembers shaking his ass to get some guy to buy him drinks, and then he sort of remembers him and the guy and Troy going into the bathroom together. He doesn’t remember much else after that, which is kind of a relief, because he suspects he sucked someone’s dick, but he doesn’t know whose.

He shifts slightly, and his belt buckle jangles. His belt and his jeans are undone. Shit. Okay, so maybe he did more than suck someone’s dick. It wouldn’t be the first time. He closes his eyes briefly, and opens them again to find Peter still watching him closely.

“I feel sick.”

“I’m not surprised,” Peter says. There’s something in his tone, something underneath his usual sardonic drawl, that makes Alex’s queasy stomach tighten with guilt. It’s worry, he thinks, or maybe it’s worse than that. Maybe it’s grief. Alex is too fucked up to figure it out right now. “Drink this.”

Alex blinks at the bottle of water being shoved in his face. He fumbles it in his numb grasp, but manages to drink a few sips.

“Are you just drunk?” Peter’s face swims in and out of focus again, but his voice sharpens. “Or did you take something?”

“No.” Alex blinks to try and clear his vision. “Jus’ drunk.” He groans. “Jus’ having some fun.”

“Fun?” Peter makes the word sound like an obscenity.

“ _Fun_ ,” Alex says. The room starts to spin, and he wants to lie down on the floor again, except Peter’s holding him by the upper arms to keep him upright. “You remember fun? You used to be fun!”

“Oh, well forgive me for thinking finding my seventeen-year-old nephew passed out on a bathroom floor in a shitty club isn’t the same as a day at the fucking zoo.”

Alex sways a little, and his stomach roils. He feels sick. “Mom’s gonna kill me, isn’t she?”

Peter wipes Alex’s hair back from his sweaty forehead. “No, pup, but she’s going to want to know why you’re trying to kill yourself.”

Alex almost laughs, before he realizes that Peter’s not joking.

 

 

***

 

Talia doesn’t rip his throat out like Alex is expecting. Instead, she waits until the morning and calls Alan Deaton. It’s _humiliating_. Deaton examines him while Talia stands by the bed. Peter’s in the room too. He’s been sitting with Alex all night, making him sip water, putting a damp washcloth against his forehead, and making sure he had a bucket whenever he needed to be sick.

In the morning Deaton asks all sorts of questions about what he was drinking, and how much he was drinking, and how many guys he had sex with, and what that bruise is on the inside of his elbow.

Alex’s chest tightens.

No.

That’s impossible.

He didn’t…

“What?” Alex squints to see. His head is still throbbing. “What is that?”

Deaton exchanges a glance with Talia. “It looks like a mark from a syringe.”

“No, I don’t…” _I don’t_ do _that?_ Except, if he doesn’t, then what the hell is that mark doing there?

Alex knows that Troy sometimes shoots up ice, and that the track marks take a little while to fade since there’s wolfsbane in it to prevent his body from metabolizing the drug too quickly. But Alex doesn’t do drugs. He’s said no every time that Troy’s offered.

Except what is that _mark_?

It feels like he’s just been doused in freezing water. Oh god. Either he said yes at last, or Troy didn’t listen, and he could have died on that bathroom floor. He could have _died_. Alex thought that there was nothing in the world that could touch him anymore, but he feels a rush of sudden stark fear.

“These _friends_ of yours,” Talia says, her voice hitching. “No more.”

Alex swallows. “Mom, I—”

Talia’s eyes flash alpha red. “No more!”

Alex and his wolf shrink back. Tears prick his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“So you fucking should be!”

Alex has never heard his mom swear. It scares him more than her alpha tone. He wants to cry, but he’s afraid if he does that she won’t comfort him.

“Talia,” Deaton says softly. “I think it would help if you stepped outside for a moment.”

Talia stares at Alex like she can barely contain the urge to shout at him again, and then she nods sharply and leaves, slamming the door behind her.

Deaton shoves a thermometer into Alex’s dry mouth. “I know you know how dangerous drugs are. And I know you know how dangerous it is to drink so much that you don’t remember what you do.”

Alex nods, his stomach twisting.

Deaton holds his gaze. “But what I don’t think you know, Alex, and what you need to figure out, is why you’re indulging in risk-taking behavior like this. It’s self-destructive.”

“Call it what is it, Alan,” Peter says quietly.

Alex’s gaze flicks to him, and then away again.

“It’s suicidal,” Peter says.

Alex squeezes his stinging eyes shut. “No, I was _drunk_. I wouldn’t have…if I was sober, I wouldn’t have done it!”

“You’re seventeen,” Peter says. “You shouldn’t be getting so wasted that you think it’s a great idea to let some piece of scum put a needle in your arm and a dick in your ass!”

Alex flinches.

“Peter,” Deaton says, taking the thermometer back. “Please.”

“Are you going to throw me out too?” Peter asks, raising his brows.

“If I have to,” Deaton says calmly.

“Alex,” Peter says, his tone softening. “Look at me.”

Alex raises his gaze unwillingly.

“Do you get why we’re angry?” Peter’s gaze is ice blue. “Because I need to you to be very, very clear on this. We’re angry because you obviously care so little about yourself that you don’t give a fuck what happens to you, and that’s not what you are.” His voice hitches. “You are _ours_ , and you’re more fucking precious to this pack than you can even possibly imagine, and it kills us that you don’t _see_ that.”

Alex swallows, and rubs his thumb against the bruise inside his elbow. “Peter, I wouldn’t have…” His voice falters.

“But you did, pup,” Peter says, shaking his head slightly. “You did.”

“I’m sorry,” Alex whispers.

“Don’t apologize to me, Alex,” Peter tells him. “Apologize to the kid you used to be.”

 

***

 

The pack knows.

Of course they know.

Alex doesn’t know if Talia’s imposed some sort of restriction on them, or if they just don’t know what to say, because conversations die when Alex walks into a room. Even Matty doesn’t say anything, and Matty usually has an opinion about everything.

Stiles, who obviously didn’t get the memo, plonks himself on Alex’s bed that night, tilts his head, and opens his mouth. “So, what are drugs like?”

Alex doesn’t meet his gaze. “I don’t remember. I was already drunk.”

“That seems pointless,” Stiles says thoughtfully. “I’m going to get drunk for my birthday. Well, I’m going to have _one_ drink. My dad and some of the others are building a still. It’s not like we can just go and buy a bottle of whatever from the liquor store. It’s all got wolfsbane in it.” He chews his thumbnail. “You know how my dad got a job working security at Uncle William’s office? Everyone there thinks he’s some weird religion because he doesn’t even drink beer.”

Alex thinks that maybe he’s been withdrawn for so long, avoiding most of the pack, that Stiles is taking this opportunity to share absolutely every thought that’s crossed his mind in the past few months, if not longer. Or maybe he’s just forgotten how much Stiles likes to talk.

“So, yeah, my dad says I can try alcohol. He probably wouldn’t be cool with drugs though.”

Alex’s mouth quirks despite himself. “Probably not.”

He knows it’s been hard for the humans to find work. They came from the wilderness, so it’s not like their computer skills are up to date. And jobs with physical labor are out too, because their cover would be blown the second they couldn’t lift something heavy. One of the women works as a cashier in a store downtown, a few of the men have started a lawn mowing and pool cleaning service, and John has picked up work as a security guard, but most of the humans are still unemployed, and unemployable. Aunt Clare is trying to teach them how to use computers and technology so they can pick up office work in some of the pack’s businesses, but it’s a slow process. Most of them are still terrified of going into town, let alone into a workplace.

Lydia, of course, has embraced her new freedom. She’s working as Laura’s P.A. at the law firm, and she has a reputation for ruthless efficiency that any wolf would envy. She’s also enrolled in an online college, working at getting her own law degree. Peter is ridiculously proud of her.

Stiles is also doing college courses online. He seems to change his courses as regularly as he changes his socks though, so Alex has no idea what degree he’s actually aiming for. Neither does Stiles, probably, but he seems happy.

Not right now though. Right now he looks more somber that Alex has seen him in a long time.

“Why did you do it?” Stiles asked, a frown creasing his forehead.

Alex shakes his head slightly. “I don’t know.”

“When I was little,” Stiles says, “when I was with the foxes, I thought I belonged. I thought I was one of them.”

Alex nods.

“But I wasn’t,” Stiles said. “I mean, I was a _terrible_ fox. I didn’t even have a tail. Then, when I came here, after I got over being scared of you guys, for a while I thought I could be a wolf.” He makes a face. “Again, no tail.”

Alex smiles slightly, despite himself.

“But even though I wasn’t one of you, you let me belong anyway.” Stiles’s expression grows serious again. “This pack, this family, they did everything for me. They made it better. I wish I could make it better for you.”

“It’s too late,” Alex whispers. “I’ve screwed everything up.”

“You haven’t,” Stiles says, reaching out to grab Alex’s hand. “You’re still here, you’re still okay. You’re still my best friend.”

“Derek’s your best friend,” Alex retorts.

“No, Derek’s my mate,” Stiles says. “He doesn’t get to be both. It’s a conflict of interest. I need to bitch to my best friend when my mate annoys the hell out of me. So you have to be my best friend.”

“Peter’s probably your best friend then.”

“No,” Stiles says with a grin. “Peter’s my evil mentor.”

“Lydia?” Alex asks with a slight smile.

“My goddess,” Stiles says.

Alex’s smile fades. “What about Scott?”

“My _brother_ ,” Stiles says firmly. “Why do you keep throwing names out there? Don’t you want to be my best friend?”

“Yeah, I do,” Alex says, his voice wavering. “Stiles, I really fucked up, didn’t I?”

Stiles opens his arms, and Alex leans into his embrace. Stiles pats his back. “Yeah, you did, but that’s okay. Everyone fucks up sometimes.”

“Not like this.” Alex presses his face against Stiles’s throat. “Not like I did. Mom hates me and—”

“Mom doesn’t _hate_ you,” Stiles says, his voice suddenly sharp. “You terrified her, Alex. She’s spent the whole day crying. I didn’t even know alphas _could_ cry!”

Alex shivers, sick with guilt, and hates himself even more.

 

***

 

There’s a light on in the workshop.

Alex sidles in the door, and makes straight for the chair. He sits and draws his knees up.

James glances at him over Talia’s shoulder from where they’re standing by the workbench. He’s holding her close, and Alex has never seen her look so vulnerable, so small. Alphas are supposed to be made of steel.

Alex fixes his gaze on the wall. He swallows a few times before he can trust himself to speak. “Last night was the first time I did any drugs apart from cigarettes and alcohol.” He hears the soft crunch of sawdust underfoot as his mom turns around to look at him, but she doesn’t say anything and neither does his dad. Alex takes that as his cue to continue. “I don’t know if I agreed, or if I was just too drunk to say no. I’ve known for a while that Troy does ice.”

He can hear his parents’ heartbeats, frantic and fast.

“We’ve been sleeping together since I was fifteen. We sleep with other people too.” His breath sounds loud in the silence. He can’t look at his parents. “I don’t remember how many people it’s been. Most of the time I’m drunk.”

It’s so quiet that Alex can hear the bugs pinging against the outside light.

“I’ve, um, I’ve done stuff just so guys will buy me drinks, or just give me cash.” His throat aches as he lays his shame bare. “I’ve gone with strangers in their cars. I’m really sorry. I don’t know how I got like this.”

He turns his head as he senses movement, and then his dad is hauling him to his feet. It’s rough, and for a second Alex’s heart seizes, but then his dad is hugging him.

“Jesus, Alex.” His voice sounds broken. “Why didn’t you tell us how unhappy you were?”

“I didn’t…I didn’t know I _was_.”

Not until right now, until this moment, and the realization rips his breath out of his lungs and threatens to suffocate him.

And what difference would it have made, really?

His dad’s love is big and all encompassing. It’s easy to fall into it again and to believe that it’s all he needs. His mom is different. When she stands close to James and strokes Alex’s hair, he’s almost overcome by guilt and shame. She’s not just his mom, she’s his _alpha_ , and he’s done the wrong thing. A part of him, the wolf, wants to crawl on her belly and bare her throat in submission. The other part of him, the boy, just wants her to love him.

Just wants to be her little kid again, when everything was so much simpler, and Alex hadn’t been broken.

“We’re going to fix this,” Talia says firmly. “It’s going to be okay, Alex.”

He wants to believe her to the moon and back, but how can he? How can he when there’s nothing inside him but a hollow space? It’s been so long since everything was okay that Alex doesn’t even remember how it feels.

 


	15. Chapter 15

(19)

 

Alex sits at his window with his legs drawn up, and marks out the hours with cigarettes. It’s exam week and he’s stressed, and the urge to just go out and get drunk has been pulling at him all day. He’s lost weight this semester. His favorite skinny jeans aren’t that skinny anymore, and he doesn’t need blusher to make his cheekbones stand out on his girl days. Peter keeps threatening to hold him down and shovel carbs into him.

Alex leans forward, and his hair falls around his face. It’s longer than he’s ever worn it. Sometimes, when he’s a girl, he likes to style it into soft, loose curls. When he’s a boy, like today, he generally just shoves it behind his ears, or puts it up in a messy elastic, and tries his best to ignore it.

The window of Alex’s room in Peter’s apartment overlooks a small courtyard. It’s not much of a view, except for the gardener. He’s young, and muscled, and doesn’t wear a shirt. Alex feels a twinge of interest as he watches him. It’s not sexual, not exactly, but the guy preens a little when he catches Alex’s gaze. He’s definitely interested. Alex files that away for future reference, for when he’s interested too, and tells himself it’s all about the timing.

He turns his attention back to his notes on comparative literature. It feels like sophomore year is killing him. He’s tired most of the time, and he misses Beacon Hills and the pack, and Peter watches him like a fucking hawk. And it’s one thing for Peter to tell him he doesn’t mind if Alex brings people home or whatever, but Alex could only fuck around when he was drunk anyway. Now, sober, he’s stuck with all the urges and nowhere near enough courage.

He glances down into the courtyard again, at the gardener.

Maybe, sure, or maybe he’ll just chicken out like every other time.

It’s a Wednesday afternoon. Pad Thai night. Peter will pick some up on the way home from Stanford. Alex didn’t get into Stanford. No surprises there, after what happened to his grades during that whole fucked up period that was his last two years of high school. He’s studying sociology at Mission College. It’s a community college. Even Malia isn’t at a community college. Talia and James pretend they aren’t disappointed, but Alex is sure they must be. He was always the smart one, right up until he wasn’t.

He picks up his phone and checks his messages. There’s one from Derek: _Miss you. Hope you’re doing ok._

 _Pretty tired_ , Alex sends back. _Sick of studying._ _Ok though._

Derek texts him at least once a day, and always asks how he is. At first Alex worried that it was an obligation. It took him a while to see that it wasn’t. Derek’s always been the sibling he’s closest to. Just, for a while, Alex forgot that. Derek doesn’t text him just because someone has to make sure he’s not making the wrong choices again and he drew the short straw or something. Derek texts him because he’s his brother, and he loves him.

Sometimes it really is just that simple.

It’s taken Alex a long time to feel like he’s crawled out of the hole he was in. At the time, he hadn’t noticed how deep it went. Or maybe just hadn’t cared. Maybe he liked the hole. Maybe he knew its dimensions well enough to know there was nothing in there that could surprise him. At least, he’d thought so.

He still remembers seeing the track mark on his arm. The tiny bruise, and the even tinier puncture mark.

He’s not sure what happened to Troy. He hopes he turned his life around too, figured out how to face what was hurting him once and for all. The pack seems to think that Troy should be rotting in hell for what he did to Alex, if there’s any justice at all, but Alex can’t bring himself to hate him. He’d known who Troy was, and he’d gone with him willingly. Alex doesn’t even pretend that at the time he thought it was an escape. He’d known all along it was a descent. He’d wanted it anyway. He’d wanted to feel something, anything.

As part of the deal to leave Beacon Hills for college, Alex not only has to live with Peter, he also has to see a therapist once a week. It’s not as bad as he thought it would be. They talk about his body dysphoria, and how he was bullied at school, and why Alex thought alcohol helped with dealing with those things. They talk about what Jason meant to him, and what it meant to lose him so suddenly. They talk about the things Alex did when he was drunk, and how they made him feel then, and how they make him feel now. They talk about his pack, and how some days it feels like a struggle not to turn tail and run straight back to Beacon Hills and never leave again.

They talk about his _fear_. The fear that led him to make those wrong decisions, and the fear that defines him even now: the fear that he will never find a way to reconcile the boy and the wolf.

When Peter gets home, Alex meets him in the little kitchen and helps unpack the takeout. When they’re sitting in the living room to eat, Alex says, “Do you remember that story you told me once?”

“Which one?”

“The one about the boy with the two wolves inside him.”

Peter nods.

Alex toys with his chopsticks. “Which one would you have fed?”

“I don’t know,” Peter says after a long moment. “I like to think I’d choose to feed the good, brave wolf, but I’m not sure that’s true. Anger and fear are strong motivators too, and they can be excellent teachers.”

“You never see anything in black and white, do you?”

Peter’s mouth quirks. “Well, how very boring life would be if I did.”

“I think,” Alex says, setting his plate down on the coffee table, “that I’d really like to have a boring life.”

Peter doesn’t seem to have an answer to that, but his gaze is sympathetic.

 

***

 

Alex works a couple of evenings a week at the sandwich shop down the street. He likes it. It gets him out of the apartment. It also gets him out of his own head in a way that college can’t. It’s busy work, but Alex likes it. He likes the uniform too: jeans and a shirt and an apron with the store logo on it. It’s unisex. It makes it easier. He usually comes home stinking of mayonnaise, wilted lettuce stuck in the grooves of his trainers, but he enjoys making small talk with the customers and with Manny, the guy he most often works with. Manny is seventeen, and still in high school. Sometimes he talks about the wild parties he’s going to, and how wasted he’s going to get, and something inside Alex’s chest seizes, and he wants to ask if Manny’s being careful, really careful.

But Manny’s not the same kid Alex was. He’s outgoing and confident. He never dodges conversation. His smiles are bright and genuine. Alex doesn’t see any hollowness in Manny’s gaze, the way he still can in his own when he stares at his pale face in the mirror.

“We’re outta ketchup,” Manny announces one afternoon, leaning back into the kitchen and tossing the empty plastic bottle in the bin.

“I got it,” Alex tells him. Manny’s also really short, and the ketchup is on the top shelf of the refrigerated storeroom. He heads into the cool darkness of the storeroom and stands on his tiptoes to haul a bottle down. When he gets outside to the counter, there’s a queue forming.

Alex pulls on a pair of gloves and takes the next order.

He and Manny work well together. Sometimes, when the store’s almost empty, or at least when there’s no chance of the owners coming by, they pump the music up loud and turn their sandwich making production line into more of a dance off. No time for that tonight though. There’s a cinema down the block, and a movie must have just let out, because yeah, the store is packed. It takes a while to clear the queue and, just when Alex thinks they’re done, the bells on the door jangle again, and a girl walks in.

She’s pretty. She has long dark hair, and big dark eyes.

“Heeeey,” Manny says, leaning over the counter. Alex hopes he isn’t going for subtle, because wow.

The girl smiles, and dimples appear. ‘Hi.”

“What can I get you?” Manny asks, trying for his most seductive smile.

The girl catches Alex’s gaze, and Alex rolls his eyes.

“Um, can I get a footlong Italian meatball?”

Alex waits for Manny’s predictable joke about footlongs—really, it’s a wonder nobody’s complained, but maybe Manny’s just so ridiculous that it’s impossible to be offended—but Manny only grins and gets to work.

“And also a footlong chicken teriyaki?”

“Ah,” Manny asks, waggling his eyebrows. “For your boyfriend?”

“No,” the girl says, her smile widening. “For my _dad_ , who is waiting outside in his car and is on his way home from a gun show.”

Manny’s eyes widen, and he suddenly gets very busy making the sandwiches.

Alex doesn’t believe for a second that this girl would need her gun-toting dad to protect her from anyone though. She looks like she could very easily hold her own.

“I hear those wolfsbane bullets really hurt,” Alex says.

“Oh, yeah,” the girl says, her eyes lighting up with mischief. “They’re _excruciating_. But only for a few minutes. Then you die.”

Manny meeps.

Alex takes two cookies out of the case and slides them into a paper bag. The girl’s earned them, just for making Manny let that embarrassing noise out.

“So you’re not from around here?” he asks.

“I am now,” The girl says. “I just moved in last week. I’ve got an internship with an advertising agency, so me and my cousin have got a place together. He’s at USF.”

“Cool,” Alex says. “Welcome to the neighborhood.”

The girl takes her sandwiches and thanks him for the free cookies. She leaves a decent tip.

“I’ll see you guys around,” she says.

Alex waves.

“Oh my god,” Manny says. “Bro, I’m in love!”

He totally is too, until the next pretty girl walks in.

 

***

 

Alex knew that Derek and Stiles were coming down for the weekend. He’s just not expecting them to arrive so early. He’s still half-asleep when Peter lets them in the apartment, and he’s hardly registered what’s going on before Stiles is opening his bedroom door and flinging himself onto the bed.

He bounces. “Alex, wake up!”

Alex scrubs his hands over his face. “Are you fucking kidding me, Stiles?”

Stiles jams his face into Alex’s throat and inhales. Alex has never really got why Stiles does it, since he admits he can’t smell much at all, but he guesses scenting is just as much about the closeness as it is the smelling.

Derek leans over the bed and hauls Stiles off Alex. Then they settle down on either side of him, and Alex leans into Derek’s touch and lifts his jaw so his brother can scrape his stubble along his throat. It tickles. Derek and Stiles both smell like home, and pack, and Beacon Hills.

Derek smoothes a palm down Alex’s bare shoulder, leaving warmth in its wake. “You’re too skinny, Alex.”

“Yeah. Been busy.” He closes his eyes and snuggles closer to Derek. “Peter’s all over my ass about it, don’t worry.”

Stiles wedges himself under Alex’s arm. “Missed you.”

“I missed you guys too, except I wasn’t expecting you to turn up this early.”

Derek huffs. “Well, someone _accidentally_ set the alarm on his phone for three a.m.”

Stiles grins. “And since we were already up, it made sense to leave early.”

Alex snorts. “You’re terrible.”

Stiles jabs him in the ribs. “You mispronounced _awesome_.”

Alex laughs, and snuggles closer to them both. “Did you bring Lydia with you?”

“Yeah.” Stiles shudders. “I don’t think we’re going to see much of her and Peter this weekend. How good is your hearing? Like are they already—”

“Stiles,” Derek growls softly, reaching across Alex to poke him. “Do you really want to know the answer to that?”

Stiles considers for a moment. “No,” he says at last. “No, I do not. Good call, Der.”

Alex rubs his cheek against Derek’s chest, and closes his eyes again as Derek’s fingers card through his hair. “Missed you guys,” he repeats.

It feels so good to be surrounded by his packmates that Alex can’t even remember when it didn’t feel like enough. Okay, so maybe he’ll always have that hollow place in him that was carved out by his heartbreak, and maybe he’ll always feel the ache, but his pack is here for him, and that’s more than some people have.

When Alex was a kid, he knew that wolves without packs became omegas and risked going feral and needing to be put down. But since moving to the city he’s noticed that there are degrees of separation. Packs don’t work the same in the city. They can’t. There are too many students and commuters and people traveling back and forth over invisible territorial lines. Pack borders in cities are porous. Packs themselves seem to be more spread out. Alex has met people who don’t live with their pack alphas, and only have contact every full moon. Alex wonders if people born into city packs even feel the same connection to their territory that he does. Even now, hundreds of miles away, he can close his eyes and feel the Preserve. Feel the life and the energy coursing through the land, the trees, the roots in the earth. It’s hard to imagine having a connection like that with concrete and steel.

Alex knows one thing for sure now. He’s not supposed to be a city wolf. He’s not like Peter. He can’t _settle_ in the city. He can’t ever truly relax. He needs his pack, and he needs his territory too.

Alex stretches and reaches out over Stiles to grab his pack of cigarettes.

“Really?” Derek grumbles.

“The least of my sins,” Alex murmurs. “One addiction at a time, okay?”

A worried look flashes across Derek’s face.

Right. Alex has been living with Peter, who doesn’t give a fuck if he smokes—Peter’s not a stranger to that vice either—because he knows exactly what it’s like to deal with addiction himself. Not like he ever went totally off the rails like Alex did, but he has admitted to Alex that there was a period in his life when sitting down with a bottle of whisky every night and quietly writing himself off was his only game plan. Peter still drinks now, but not every day, and he doesn’t keep alcohol in the apartment.

Alex climbs out of bed, and settles himself on his windowsill. He lights a cigarette, then glances over at Derek and Stiles. They’ve shifted together to fill the space he left. Stiles is sprawled across Derek, lanky limbs splayed out, and Derek is lazily stroking his back.

Alex envies them a little.

He loves them, but he envies them.

Happiness like theirs shouldn’t be so rare.

 


	16. Chapter 16

(19)

 

 

Peter has a faculty function coming up and since Lydia is home in Beacon Hills and can’t attend, he offers to take Alex instead.

“It’s not really my thing,” Alex says, making a face.

“It’s not really my thing either,” Peter says. “Which is why I want to turn up with some arm candy, rip a few of my colleagues’ egos into shreds by mocking their latest research papers, steal the champagne, and get the fuck out of there.”

Alex sighs, and shoves his books off his lap. “You want me to be your arm candy?”

“Why not?” Peter quirks a brow.

Alex rolls his eyes. “When is it?”

“Next Thursday.”

Alex chews his lip for a moment. Next Thursday is only a few days shy of full moon, meaning that Alex will be on track for a girl day by then, and Peter knows it. Alex hasn’t worn a dress in public since that one perfect night at his high school dance, all those years ago. These days, when the wolf makes her demands, Alex softens his look a little, wears pretty shirts, maybe some eyeliner, but it’s just the bare minimum to appease the wolf. Half the time he looks no different than any other slightly androgynous guy walking down the street. He saves his few dresses and skirts for the privacy of the apartment.

“No,” he says quietly.

Peter doesn’t push. What he does is drop the subject completely. Then, a few days later, a glossy catalog appears on the kitchen counter, open to the evening wear section. Alex rolls his eyes but, later in the day, finds himself sitting by his window flicking through the catalog. The gardener is working down in the courtyard, shirtless as always, and the hedge trimmer is buzzing, but Alex hardly glances in his direction.

Looking at the dresses in the catalog is like igniting a slow-burning fuse inside him. It's giving himself permission to imagine wearing these clothes, to being the girl he wants to be again, if only for a single night… it makes his breath catch in want.

Peter saunters in after work with takeout, and a smirk. He leans in Alex’s doorway and waits for Alex to notice.

“Stop manipulating me,” Alex says, looking up from the catalog.

“Me?” Peter feigns a wounded look. “Would I, Alex, really now? I can’t imagine why you would think such a thing.”

Alex rolls his eyes.

Peter nods at the catalog. “Page thirteen. The red dress in the middle. But we’d get it in green for you.” He grins. “Green brings out your eyes.”

Seriously, fuck him sideways.

Alex knows exactly what dress Peter’s referring to. The knee-length chiffon halter neck with the beaded bodice. And yeah, it would totally look better on Alex in green.

 

***

 

When he first started college, Alex was worried that he’d be the only kid there who had no idea what he was doing, or what he actually wanted to be when he graduated. He still doesn’t know, not really. Some of the other people in his classes are just as confused as he is. And, being a community college, there are a lot of mature-age students. It’s from them that Alex has learned the most important thing: you can have as many do-overs as you want. Take a path that doesn’t suit you? Find yourself stuck in a job you hate? You can always try something new.

Even the people Alex thinks have all their shit together maybe don’t.

The dark-haired girl with the dimples comes into the sandwich shop a lot. It’s usually late at night, and she’s usually just finished another unpaid twelve hours at the advertising agency, and she’s usually ravenous. By her third visit Alex learns that her name is Allison and she _hates_ her internship.

“I mean, I expected to have to do all the printing and getting the coffee and all of that stuff, but I thought I’d be doing _more_ than that,” she grouses as she rips into her Italian meatball. “I thought I’d actually be learning something, you know? Apart from how to tell middle-aged mated assholes to keep their hands to themselves, anyway.”

Alex is sitting with her at one of the tables, eating his dinner on his break. “Did you always want to go into advertising?”

Allison wrinkles her nose. “I don’t know. Maybe? Are you supposed to know what you want to do with your life?”

Alex snorts. “Don’t ask me, I’ve got no idea either.”

“Hey, Alex, when you’re finished your pity party, we need more shredded lettuce,” Manny calls.

“I’m on my break.”

Manny pulls a face.

“So what do you like doing?” Alex asks her.

She shrugs. “I don’t know. I looked at my Tumblr feed last night and it’s full of pictures of baby animals. That might be a sign. I should probably have been a vet or something.”

“I’ve got a packmate who’s studying to be a vet,” Alex tells her, thinking of Scott and his goofy smile, and the way it gets goofier when he’s holding a bunch of fluffy kittens.

“Maybe I should just get a cat,” Allison says. “Although I had a fish once when I was eleven. It died after two days.”

“Oh.” Alex raises his eyebrows. “So maybe not a vet?”

“Maybe not.” Allison wipes a dollop of sauce from her chin with her napkin. “It was dumb. I just thought that by the time I’d graduated that it all would have fallen into place, that I’d magically have become an adult, and somehow know exactly how to fill out a rental agreement and figure out a budget and do my taxes and stuff, you know?”

“My uncle does my taxes for me,” Alex admits. “And I’m pretty sure he’s ripping off the IRS but I’m too afraid to ask.”

Allison laughs at that. “It’s just crazy. I thought that I’d know who I was by now, you know?”

“Yeah.” Alex crumples his napkin up and looks up at the clock.

Allison follows his gaze. “Break’s over?”

Alex nods.

“Same time tomorrow?” she asks him.

“Sure,” Alex says. “The pity party’s always open.”

She laughs again, and gets her stuff together to leave.

“Dude,” Manny says wistfully as Alex returns to work. “She’s totally got a crush on you.”

Alex gives him the side eye. “She really doesn’t. It’s possible to be friends with a girl without it being about sex, you know?”

Manny slides a tray of dough into the oven. “I choose not to believe that. All the girls want a piece of Manny.”

“Your bloody, still-beating heart in their claws?” Alex suggests.

Manny slams the oven door shut and grabs a discarded pickle off the counter and throws it at him.

Alex dodges it easily.

Later, he thinks back to what Allison said about not knowing who she was yet. Alex wonders if that’s worse than knowing who you are, but refusing to acknowledge it. In a break between customers he pulls his phone out of his apron pocket and texts Peter: _Buy the dress._

 

 

 

***

 

Alex knows nothing about art history, and even less about faculty relations in the Stanford Department of Art and Art History. The function is held at the gallery on campus, and there are waiters with canapés and flutes of champagne, and people talk and smile and move around each other to the accompaniment of a string quartet. It’s certainly classier than anything Alex has been to before. He takes a canapé, refuses the champagne, and tries not to stink the place up with sour anxiety as people look at him.

Peter offers Alex his arm. “It’s because you look radiant, sweetheart.”

Alex feels like _radiant_ might be a stretch, but hell, he’ll take it. The dress looks great on him, and a quick trip to Peter’s tailor got it taken in so that the bodice doesn’t gape. Alex’s hair is styled into loose curls, and he’s wearing makeup. Also, he managed to walk up the steps to the gallery without falling off his heels, so bonus points for that. In his heels he’s the same height as Peter, maybe even a smidge taller. His wolf is ridiculously happy to look like this. She’s preening. It feels good.

Peter escorts him to the bar and gets him a mineral water, then they go and look at the paintings and installations.

“Stiles can paint better than this,” Alex says, staring at one painting with his head on an angle.

“Of course he can,” Peter says mildly. “The pack needs to stop thinking I’m just humoring him. The boy has a rare talent.” He sips his champagne. “He needs a few years more to really develop his style, but I don’t see any reason why his work shouldn’t hang in galleries around the country, or around the world. Have you seen the series of portraits he’s doing on his father and the group?”

“No.”

“They’re deceptively simplistic,” Peter says. “They’re also quite sublime. I’ve photographed them and shown them around the faculty. Everyone is just seething with envy that I’ve managed to find myself such a raw talent.” His grin sharpens as he glances around the room. “Can’t you just feel the claws coming out?”

Peter is probably the only person Alex knows who can make a college art history faculty seem like could rival the court of the Borgias.

Peter’s grin fades and his expression becomes thoughtful. “Stiles’s work captures an undoubted sense of something unique that we’ve lost.”

“Humanity?” Alex murmurs quietly.

“Yes,” Peter says. “Yes, I suspect that’s it.”

Alex studies the painting in front of him, but thinks of Stiles. Of course Stiles is extraordinary. Of course he is. He came crashing out of the wilderness and into their lives, and wrapped golden threads around Derek, and around all of them. He’s light and laughter that can’t be contained. He’s a _miracle_ , and he shines with it.

Alex shone once, under bedraggled streamers and balloons in a school gymnasium. He thinks that maybe he’s recaptured a piece of that tonight. He’s beautiful.

 _She’s_ beautiful.

He closes his eyes briefly as the wolf pushes close to the surface.

It’s been too long since he felt as though he belonged in his skin.

It feels good.

 

***

 

Peter introduces him to most of the faculty: “This is my niece, Alex.”

The words roll so smoothly off his tongue that Alex wants to cry.

 

***

 

After the party they stop at a pizza place and order a Supreme to take home. Peter has his tie off before they even get to the apartment. Alex’s feet hurt a little, but he doesn’t want to take his shoes off.

They eat at the kitchen table, each mouthful of grease smudging Alex’s lipstick. He takes the napkin that Peter offers him, and regretfully wipes his mouth.

Peter’s smile is knowing. “Still gorgeous, sweetheart.”

Alex sighs, and then smiles ruefully. “Am I that obvious?”

“A little.” Peter sets his crust down. “Tonight might be over, but there’s always next month, and the month after that.”

“You have one of these things every month?”

“No, praise everything that’s holy, but it’s been a long time since I took a pretty girl out to dinner. We could do that.”

“Huh.” Alex picks up another piece of pizza. “I’m not sure what’s more wrong with that statement. The fact that you’re not counting all your dates with Lydia, or the fact that my uncle wants to take me out to dinner.”

“Lydia is…” Peter tilts his head. “Have you ever seen [_The Love Potion_](http://www.demorgan.org.uk/The%20Love%20Potion), by Evelyn De Morgan? That’s Lydia. She’s majestic and terrifying. She’d rip my balls off and use them as a purse if I called her pretty.”

Alex quirks a brow. “And I won’t?”

“Not enough people have called you pretty, I think,” Peter says frankly. “If it offends you, of course, I’ll stop.”

Alex feels his face burn a little. “It doesn’t offend me. It’s just a little weird for my uncle to be asking me on a date.”

“Your very mated uncle,” Peter says. “Your hopelessly in love with a vengeful human goddess uncle. But you helped me out tonight with all those stuffed shirts. If you ever want me to return the favor, I make excellent arm candy.”

“Maybe,” Alex says.

He likes the idea, a lot. He likes the thought of going out somewhere nice when he’s a girl, dressed in something that makes him feel special. And he likes the idea of having Peter there, to make sure it’s safe. And okay, creepiness aside, it would be kind of fun to pretend he had an older, suave boyfriend or something. He has a feeling Peter would totally ham it up too.

“Maybe,” he says again, and then relents. “Yeah, let’s do it.”

Peter grins. “It’s a date!”

Alex snorts. “Only if you stop calling it that!”

“Deal,” Peter says, his eyes bright with laughter.

 

***

 

Alex hangs his dress up carefully after his shower. He’ll need to take it to get cleaned tomorrow, but he doesn’t just want to leave it in a crumpled mess in his hamper in the meantime. He hangs it on the back of his door, so he can still see it when he climbs into bed.

Fake dating his uncle. Could his life be weirder?

Yeah, it could.

He checks his phone to find a test from an unknown number.

_Hi Alex. It’s Allison. Manny gave me your number. I have this dumb game thing to go to next week & my only other friend in the city flaked on me. Will you please come with me so I don’t look like a sad lonely loser? I’ll buy us nachos! _

Alex hesitates for a moment, then laughs.

Why the hell not?

It sounds like Allison could use a friend, and Alex is sure that he could as well.

 _Sounds fun_ , he sends back.

It’s a little while before Allison answers: _I’m promising nachos, not fun. Fair warning._

_Lucky I like nachos then._

_Thanks Alex. You’re the best!_ Her response comes with more smiley faces than even Stiles would feel comfortable using.

Alex drifts off to sleep with his phone in one hand, his face turned toward the dress hanging on the back of his door, and a smile on his face.

 


	17. Chapter 17

(19)

 

Allison picks Alex up on Friday night from the front of the apartment. He’s wearing jeans and a t-shirt. So is she, he sees with relief. Manny seemed to think that Allison was coming onto him or something, and even though Alex has never got that vibe from her, a part of him is still relieved that this thing looks pretty casual. They’re just hanging, like friends.

This is how you make friends, right? You find someone who seems pretty cool and then you agree to hang out? To say Alex is out of practice would be an understatement. The last time Alex tried to make friends outside his pack, it was a fucking disaster.

“Thanks so much for doing this,” Allison says as Alex climbs into her car. “Ugh. I hate game night. Do you even like basketball, or am I going to have to buy you giant nachos as big as your head to make up for dragging you to this thing?”

“It’s cool.” Alex shrugs. “But I won’t refuse nachos as big as my head.”

He hasn’t watched a game in years, of course, not even on TV. The smack of the ball on the court, the squeak of trainers, the thunk of a hit on the backboard. It all takes him right back to when he was thirteen, and Jason Cormack kept insisting Alex shoot hoops with him.

It takes a while to get to USF. Allison tells him about her week at the advertising agency— _“A client rejected a campaign because it wasn’t_ sexy _enough. It’s for fucking yogurt.”—_ and Alex tells her about how he wants to do sociology of criminology next semester, because he thinks it might be interesting. Even though he has no idea what he’d use it for.

“But what would you use _any_ of it for?” Allison asks as she drives. “I’m not asking that in a bitchy way, either. I mean, seriously, if you’ve got this figured out, you need to tell me immediately.”

Alex laughs. “Fuck, I don’t know. Maybe get into community work or something?”

If he has any ambition at all, Alex thinks, it’s to maybe try and help other people out somehow. It’s just the specifics he’s not sure on. But hey, Allison has already graduated and still doesn’t know what the fuck she’s doing with her life. Alex doesn’t have to start sweating too badly yet.

“Okay,” she says, brightening when they find a park outside USF’s War Memorial Gym. “Let’s go and get _nachos_!”

Nachos, Alex thinks, will definitely improve the game.

He and Allison end up sitting a few rows back from the court. Most of the crowd seems to be decked out in green and gold. It’s loud, in the enclosed gymnasium. Voices, laughter, and the crackle of the P.A. system.

Alex checks his phone when it vibrates in his pocket.

It’s from Peter: _How’s the non-date going?_

Alex snorts. _Fine._

_Call me if you need anything, pup._

_Ok_ , Alex texts back and then shoves his phone in his pocket again.

He and Allison people watch for a while, sharing their cardboard tray of fairly disgusting nachos as the bleachers fill to capacity. It’s a pretty big crowd.

“It’s your cousin who plays, right?” he asks.

“Yeah.” Allison makes a face as she tries to shake a melted cheese string off her sleeve. “I think there might be scouts or something here tonight? It’s a big deal, I guess, so I’m here to show some moral support.”

“Cool.” Alex crunches on a chip.

The music blasts, the cheerleaders come out, and the crowd whoops.

Alex stands up and claps with the rest of the crowd as the players start to make their way out onto the court. It’s awkward, since somehow he got left holding the nachos, but what the hell. Allison could probably use both hands free to applaud her cousin, right? She’s obviously not a fan of basketball, but she claps and whistles and her whole face lights up when the players hit the court.

Alex lets his gaze travel along the line of them.

Recognition hits even before realization:

Taller, broader, but that same friendly smile, that same scruffy blond hair.

 _Jason_.

Impossible.

But it’s _Jason_.

Just standing there, like it’s just a thing that could happen, like it’s not totally unimaginable.

Something slots into place deep inside Alex, like the tooth of a heavy cog in a complicated machine. Yes, this whole time he was just waiting for the wheel to make its revolution, for the weights and counterweights to shift, for the gears to turn. For the past four years, he’s been holding his breath, waiting for the mechanism to unfreeze. 

 _Thunk_.

Alex’s entire universe flips.

He can’t hear the cheering and whooping of the crowd over the roar of blood in his head. It’s static. It’s white noise.

Allison grabs his arm. “Number Eighteen! That’s my cousin.”

_Cousin._

_Jason._

Allison is an _Argent_.

Alex pulls his arm away.

“Alex?” Her brow furrows. “Are you okay”

“No, I have to—I have to—”

He has to get the hell out of here before Jason looks around to find Allison in the crowd, and sees Alex standing with her.

His wolf stirs under his skin, growls. Wants him. Wants Jason. Won’t rest quietly while he’s here. She’s pulled toward him like magnetic north, but Alex can’t. He _can’t_. He’s freaking out, and he can’t.

He stumbles away from Allison toward the steps, and _fuck_ , he’s got to go down onto the floor to leave. And Allison is right behind him, and Alex looks down and across the bleachers to where the players are standing, and Jason is turning toward them—

If Alex ever imagined golden threads, invisible to the rest of the world, snaking through the air and tangling Derek and Stiles together, then he is certain, in this second, that there is something connecting him to Jason as well. Jason’s gaze, as sharp as any golden thread, will find him. Find him, cut him, split his skin and peel it back and leave his nerves exposed. 

Alex stumbles as he reaches the bottom step.

“Alex?” Allison calls, reaching out and catching his wrist.

Alex can’t breathe.

He looks—he knows he shouldn’t, but he looks—and in that second Jason’s gaze falls on him.

Jason’s easy, familiar smile vanishes in a heartbeat as the color floods from him. “Alex?”

The name doesn’t reach him, not through the noise of the crowd, but Alex sees the shape of it on Jason’s lips. He feels Allison’s fingers dig into his wrist, a hint of claws pressing against his rapid pulse.

“Alex,” she says, her face slack with shock. “You’re _that_ Alex.”

She drops his wrist. 

Alex turns and runs.

 

***

 

“Peter?” Alex can hardly speak. His own shallow breath and rising panic are threatening to choke him.

Peter’s voice is sharp. “Alex? Where are you?”

“I’m on…” Alex wipes his stinging eyes. “I’m at USF. On Golden Gate Avenue maybe?”

“Are you safe?”

“Y-yeah.” Alex doesn’t even want to think about the implications of that question. Like what the hell kind of trouble does Peter think he could get himself into anyway? That’s a question Alex doesn’t want to face, because he knows the answer already. Peter’s seen him at his worst, that night at The Jungle. “Can you come and get me, please?”

“I’m already on my way, pup,” Peter tells him. “It might take me a while to get there, okay? I want you to find a coffee shop or something, go and wait inside, and text me to tell me where you are.”

“Okay,” Alex says.

It takes him a little while to find somewhere open. When he does, he goes inside and orders a coffee and then sits down in a booth. He hunches over, and tries to soothe his wolf. She’s howling inside. She’s tearing at him to try and break free, to get back to Jason.

Alex doesn’t even know why he ran, not really.

Maybe because he was surprised, and he’s always chosen flight over fight.

His fear has always been the strongest part of him.

And maybe because he’s imagined this scenario a million different times, with a million variations, and what if he was wrong in every one? Because a million times in a million dreams Jason smiled at him and his smile filled up all the empty places inside Alex and he was whole again. Because a million times they touched, and the years between them, the distance, melted away into nothing and they were happy again. Because a million times Jason still loved him.

It was better to break and run and maybe preserve a tiny piece of that fantasy, to keep it alive in his hidden heart instead of watching it shatter in front of him. The promise of friendship, of acceptance and of love, broken into a million glittering shards and left lying at his feet.

Just like every time he stood there and took it from Sean and Charlie at school.

He can’t have that with Jason.

He _can’t_.

Because every excuse Alex has ever made for Jason in every one of his million different fantasies, well… not one of them explains why he’s simply _here_. He’s not chained up in some compound with no access to a computer. He’s here, in San Francisco, playing basketball. Which can only mean that he made a choice not to contact Alex.

He made a choice.

Alex sits in the booth while his coffee goes slowly cold, because he doesn’t trust his shaking hands to lift it. He’s been sitting there for an hour when Peter slides into the booth opposite him. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, pup.”

“I did.” Alex can barely lift his gaze. “Jason.”

Peter’s slight smile vanishes. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t know,” Alex says, then shrugs. “No.”

“What happened?”

Alex tells him in a halting voice.

Peter sighs, and rearranges the little caddy full of sugars and sweeteners. “Ah.”

“Ah? That’s all you’ve got?”

“Despite rumors to the contrary, sometimes I don’t actually have all the answers,” Peter says quietly. “But I can tell you what I think I’d do, in your shoes.”

“What?”

“I think I’d go back,” Peter says. “I think I’d go back and wait until the game was over, probably with my handsome, clever uncle by my side, and I’d see what he has to say for himself.”

“You think there’s anything he can say that will make this better?”

“No,” Peter says. “But I think that maybe you need to hear whatever it is anyway. You need to get some closure, Alex. It’s been eating you for years. You need to make it stop.”

Alex closes his eyes and doesn’t answer. He doesn’t know what to say.

 

***

 

The game is in its final quarter when they get back inside. The place is full of noise still; shouts and cheers and whistles and buzzers and blasts of music from the PA system whenever something happens on the court. Alex and Peter find room to sit in the second row, across the court from Allison. Alex doesn’t know if she sees them or not. He doesn’t look.

He watches Jason.

He has the same look of intense concentration on his face when he plays that he always did. God, though, other than that he’s only changed for the better. He never had muscles like that when Alex knew him last.

The minutes tick down into seconds.

The crowd amps up all over again, almost raising the roof when the final buzzer sounds and the USF team wins by six points. Three of those are courtesy of Jason, and Alex can’t help the twinge of bitterness that curls inside him at that. Just seeing Jason tonight has fucking wrecked something inside him, but Jason can still help win a game? That’s not fair.

The players exit the court.

The crowd begins to leave.

When Alex next looks up, Allison is standing down on the floor looking up at him. Her dark eyes are wide, but he can’t read her expression.

“That’s her?” Peter asks, and he nods.

Allison seems to hesitate for a moment, and then climbs the steps to join them.

“I’m Peter Hale,” Peter says, holding out his hand. “Alex’s uncle.”

Allison looks as his hand for a moment before she shakes it. “Allison Argent.”

“Ah, Chris’s daughter,” Peter says.

Her expression tightens. “Yes.”

Peter ignores the tension. “Alex and I were hoping that he might have a moment to speak to Jason. They were very good friends a few years back.”

Allison’s gaze flicks to Alex, then back to Peter. “If Jason wants.”

Alex shoves his hands in his pockets to try and stop them from shaking.

Allison sits down beside him.

They don’t say anything else.

It feels like forever until the players start coming back out of the locker rooms, but maybe it’s only been about fifteen minutes. Alex knows without looking the second that Jason appears. Both Peter and Allison sit up a little straighter. Then Allison stands up and goes down onto the floor to meet him.

Alex stands up too, and it’s only the fact that Peter’s beside him that he’s able to bring himself to move at all. He trainers squeak a little on the polished floor when he reaches it.  

“Hello, Alex,” Jason says.

Alex lifts his gaze at last, and wishes that he didn’t. If the gymnasium wasn’t thick with the scent of too many wolves, maybe he would have had some warning. Instead, he’s shocked to see the girl hanging off Jason’s arm and smiling at him like she has no idea she’s just stabbed him through the heart.

“Hi,” he manages, tearing his gaze from the girl and looking at Jason at last.

His eyes are the same blue-gray as he remembers, like the sky after rain.

“It’s good to see you,” Jason says.

Alex jerks his head in a nod.

“I should have guessed you’d end up around here,” Jason says, and why the fuck is he talking like this? Why this friendly small talk, when the last thing he said to Alex, though his tears, was that he loved him? “You’re at Stanford, right?”

Alex can’t even respond to correct his assumption. He glances at the girl again.

“Oh, right,” Jason says with an awkward smile. “Um, Ebony, this is Alex. I knew him back in school.”

Before Alex has even had time to think about how he feels about that, Jason is talking again.

“Alex, this is Ebony. She’s my mate.”

 

***

 

Alex doesn’t remember much else. He thinks that maybe they talked for a few more minutes—or at least Jason and Peter did—before Peter finally said something about them running late, and they could escape.

Alex stares out the window on the drive home.

He’s not sure how he feels.

Maybe he should feel shocked, or betrayed? It’s been four years though. Four years is a long time. Of course Jason didn’t stand still, waiting. Of course he wasn’t frozen, holding his breath this whole time.

Of course he found a real girl.


	18. Chapter 18

(19)

 

 

It doesn’t feel like running when it’s running home. Alex packs his bags, and leaves his work uniform cleaned and folded for Peter to return later in the week. It doesn’t feel like defeat, exactly. He’s just…he’s tired, and he wants his pack. And Beacon Hills is home.

Peter thinks it’s a mistake, and maybe it is, but all Alex feels as they drive north is a growing sense of relief. The city was never for him.

They arrive in Beacon Hills in the evening.

His homecoming is bittersweet. It’s good to fall back into the embrace of his pack, but a part of Alex is half-afraid that he’ll fail here too, that he’ll fall back into all his old habits, and if he ruins everything here again, where else is there to go?

After Alex has been hugged and scented by the entire pack, Talia takes him into the library and closes the door behind them. She smiles at him, and lifts her hands. She presses her palms gently against his cheeks, framing his face, and sliding her thumbs along the curve of his cheekbones.

“I missed you, Alex.”

Alex exhales slowly. “I missed you too, Mom.”

She leans in closer to scent him again.

Her arms come around him, and Alex leans forward and rests his head on her shoulder. His weariness, his guilt, his sadness: they’re so entwined in his scent that they’re his baseline. Alex hardly notices it anymore.

“Oh, Alex.” She combs her fingers through his hair gently.

“I’m okay, Mom,” he says.

She coaxes his head back so she can look him in the eye. “Really?”

Alex smiles slightly. This isn’t a crisis or anything. This is just… “Just tired.”

He heads up to his room as soon as he can, and breathes in the familiar smell of home. He changes into a pair of track pants and slides under the comforter. He watches the patterns that the moonlight and the trees outside make on his bedroom ceiling. Every night when he was a kid he fell asleep to their shifting dance.

The sound of the wind in the trees soothes him in a way that the distant rumble of traffic never could.

Coming home was the right thing to do.

He lays in the darkness for a while, playing some dumb game on his phone and listening to the familiar sounds of the pack settling down for the night.

It’s good.

It can be good.

It’s home.

 

***

 

The human settlement has come a long way in the two years Alex has been away. Their tiny houses are painted now. Most of them have got awnings added. There are chairs and hammocks set up outside the houses. There are five goats now instead of three, and more chickens than Alex can count. The place actually looks lived in.

“Alex!” Melissa McCall looks up from where she’s kneeling in the vegetable patch, pulling weeds out from a row of beans. She smiles up at him from under her floppy hat. “Help me up, ‘kay?”

Alex gives her a hand up.

“Are you looking for Stiles? He’s at John’s place.”

“Thanks.” Alex heads further into the settlement.

Stiles actually meets him before he gets as far as John’s house. He’s wearing a paint-speckled shirt. Derek said he’d been spending a lot of time in the Preserve with the humans, working on those portraits that Peter is so enthusiastic about. He smells of acrylics and Twizzlers.

He slings an arm around Alex’s arm. “Guess what my dad and Jordan built?”

“What?” Alex asks.

“A wood-fired brick pizza oven,” Stiles says, eyes going wide. “They are fucking _geniuses_. So guess who’s having pizza for lunch?”

“Us?” Alex asks.

“Hell, yeah.” Stiles punches him in the shoulder.

Alex and Stiles hang around the settlement waiting for the pizza to cook. Actually, Alex doesn’t think that John and Jordan are exactly geniuses for building an oven, because, seriously, these guys were born and raised in the wilderness. Their first instinct is to revert to fire to cook shit, instead of gas or electricity. But Alex is impressed at the fact that it’s a pizza oven. When it comes to necessities, a pizza oven has to be fairly low down the list of things to build. That has to be a good sign that the humans are feeling settled at last, and secure. Traumatized refugees, Alex guesses, have different priorities.

It’s good.

Alex and Stiles sit on a log overlooking the hollow where the brick oven has been built and stretch their legs out.

John Stilinksi looks a little more relaxed every time that Alex sees him. He’s got an easy, friendly matter about him, although he wears an aura of quiet authority. If humans had alphas, Alex thinks, John would definitely be one.

“It’s good to see you again, Alex,” John tells him as he hands over a piece of only slightly smoking pizza. “Okay, so that’s a little crisp. We’re on a learning curve here.”

Down by the oven, Jordan is flapping around a cloth to try and clear the smoke.

Stiles grins at him. “A learning curve, huh?”

John snorts, and looks at Alex again. “Are you going to be staying around for a while?”

“Yeah,” Alex says. “College didn’t really work out, I guess.”

“Well, we can use you around the place,” John tells him.

Alex glances around the settlement. It all looks good. It looks like they’re thriving. “Something you need help with?” 

“Nope.” John’s mouth quirks a little. “It’s good to have you home, that’s all. And that’s coming from our pack too.”

Stiles bumps shoulders with his dad. “Aw, you’re calling yourselves a pack now? That’s awesome.”

“Well, what else would you call us?” John grumbles. “Everything else sounds dumb.”

Stiles laughs, delighted.

“Each your pizza,” John says. “And shut your mouth.”

 

***

 

Alex sneaks into Derek and Stiles’s room after dinner that night. He finds Derek in bed reading a book about architecture, and Stiles sitting on the floor in his boxers, his sketch pad across his knees. Alex climbs onto the bed and leans against Derek, and pretends he can’t smell sex. They’ve washed since, obviously, but it’s still there. Between them, it smells like something warm and quiet. Alex can’t even catch a trace of sour regret lingering in the air.

When Alex was younger he used to go back to Troy’s place and scrub down every inch of his skin before heading home again. He didn’t want anyone to smell that on him. On Alex, sex had only ever stunk of shame.

Derek curls his fingers in Alex’s hair, and sets his book aside.

Stiles flashes a smile at them from the floor, a pencil clamped between his lips.

“Peter says your paintings should be in galleries all around the world,” Alex tells him.

“Ha!” Stiles catches his pencil before it hits the floor. “That would be funny.” He goes back to his drawing with a snort.

Alex exchanges a glance with Derek. “No, he’s serious.”

Derek shrugs slightly and raises his eyebrows.

Stiles laughs and snorts again. “Art galleries!”

Derek smiles at him fondly. 

Alex envies them. God, he really does.

“Der, when did you know Stiles was your mate?”

Stiles looks up again, eyebrows raised.

“Huh.” Derek shifts, making the mattress dip a little. It’s easy for Alex to lean in closer. “It was before we went to find the other humans.”

Alex doesn’t miss the subtle shift in Derek’s tone. In a way, Alex is glad that the only boy he ever cared about was ripped away from him by circumstances he couldn’t control. He’s not sure he could have ever made the decision to let Jason go, even if he’d known it was the right thing to do. Alex’s love would have been too selfish for that.

Stiles bites his lip. “It was always.”

“You thought you were a fox,” Derek reminds him.

“It was still always,” Stiles tells him, a smile curving the corners of his mouth. “You were safe. You were _home_. Even before I wanted to do things to you with my mouth and my dick, I knew that.”

“That’s one of the sweetest things you’ve ever said to me,” Derek tells him, and quirks an eyebrow. “Sadly.”

Stiles beams at him, then looks at Alex. “Maybe it doesn’t count though. Dad says people don’t really have mates. Not the same way wolves do.”

“It counts,” Derek says.

“Jason has a mate now,” Alex says, and shrugs. “I mean, we were kids, but I guess a part of me thought…” He can’t finish the sentence. He doesn’t need to.

“I’m sorry,” Derek says. He rubs Alex’s arm.

“Meh,” Stiles says. He chews on his pencil a moment longer. “But also, so what?” He sits up a little straighter. “Okay, listen. Derek, you always say that the mating bond is like this unbreakable undeniable thing, like magnetism, or something, but it’s not though, is it? I mean, I’m not a wolf, so I don’t feel it the same way you do. That doesn’t mean what we have isn’t real. And what about Peter?”

“What about him?” Derek asks.

“Peter had a mate before Lydia,” Stiles says. “Malia’s mom. But they broke up. Their mating bond wasn’t magnetic, was it?”

“They were mated to forge a pack alliance,” Derek says.

“There,” Stiles says. “So, yeah. This mate stuff is pretty much bullshit, right? It’s not some mystical thing. It’s just an ordinary thing, like humans have. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, right? It’s just a word that means different things. Did Peter ever love Malia’s mom?”

“I don’t think he ever even liked her,” Derek murmurs.

“Their bond wasn’t in their hearts,” Stiles says with a decisive nod. “Not like ours is.”

Alex smiles slightly. “You don’t need to say that to cheer me up.”

“I’m not,” Stiles tells him. “Just maybe nothing’s written in the stars, you know?”

Alex doesn’t know, but he appreciates what Stiles is trying to tell him anyway. He’s trying to give him a way to keep his hope, but it’s not that simple. Because, mated or not, it will always come back to the fact that Jason chose to break off all contact between them. If he hadn’t, maybe things would have been different. Maybe they would have found each other again and it would have been like nothing had ever changed between them. Maybe Alex would have saved himself for Jason, and maybe it would have been perfect. But four years is a long time, and perfection doesn’t exist.

Stiles sets his work down and comes to stretch out on the bed behind Derek. He reaches over him and curls his fingers around Alex’s shoulder. He rubs his thumb along the fabric of his shirt.

Alex closes his eyes as Derek twists his body away from him and he hears them kiss, and tries to remember that he’s decided perfection is an abstract ideal.

 

***

 

Peter goes back to Stanford, and Alex wonders if he’ll be lonely now in his apartment. Peter has always prided himself on being standoffish and needing nobody, and, for the first time, Alex wonders if he was always like that, or if sometime in him changed when he was mated to Patricia to form a pack alliance.

He asks his father one morning as he’s helping in the workshop.

“What was Peter like before he got mated to Patricia Tate?”

James considers the question for a little while. “He was… he was Peter. He was an arrogant little shit who, by the way, thought I wasn’t good enough to mate with your mother and join the Hale pack.”

“Peter never thinks anyone or anything is good enough for the pack.”

“He’s probably right,” James says.

“But was he different before Patricia?”

“Yes.” James sets his sander aside. “He wasn’t as sharp around the edges back then, I suppose.”

“Why did he get mated, if there wasn’t a bond?”

“For politics,” James says. “For pack. Because your grandfather told him that it was necessary, and Peter has always done what is necessary. And because, even if he didn’t feel it himself, your grandfather told him that Patricia was his mate.”

Alex’s stomach drops.

A political marriage seems unfair enough, without someone dangling the promise of a true bond above it. Alex wondered if Peter felt angry when he realized his wolf didn’t crave Patricia, didn’t want to howl at the very thought of losing her. He wonders if he felt betrayed, or if he only felt deficient.

He wonders, again, if Jason is following his heart, or following the command of his alpha. And he wonders why it matters so much, when that tiny spark of hope that still lives inside him, the one that makes him believe that it was love and that it will always be love, can’t flare bright enough to illuminate the darkness.

But it can still burn him.

 

***

 

Over the next few days Alex tests the edges of his pain by searching for Jason online. He doesn’t find anything much, except stuff from middle school and high school. Then he checks the team roster of the USF Dons.

The player who wears number eighteen is listed as Jason Argent.

That hurts in an unexpected way, because he thinks of Ian and Mary Cormack, and how wonderful they’d been to him, even when he was terrified of them because he was a kid and he was weird and they were the parents of the boy he liked. He remembers Ian trying to show him how to play the riff from _Smoke on the Water_ on the battered old guitar he kept in the basement. He remembers Mary asking him once if he preferred chocolate cake or vanilla cake, and how, every time after that, she only made chocolate if he was over at their house. He remembers feeling utterly overwhelmed that he’d worn a dress in front of the Cormacks, and they didn’t even mind.

It’s not fair that their son doesn’t wear their name on his shirt when he plays. They were good people.

He googles Melanie Cormack as well, and finds that she lives in Europe now, and has since college. She doesn’t go by Argent, but she’s married into another pack now. She’s Melanie Jeppesen now.

Simon Argent grins out at Alex from the page of a school newsletter from Phoenix.

It’s like the Cormacks never even existed.

Alex’s mood darkens.

Alex wakes up in the middle of the night when his phone beeps. He fumbles his way across the bed to where he left it on his nightstand, tangling himself in his comforter as he moves.

It’s late. There’s a storm coming. The wind is picking up outside, and shaking the trees.

Alex grabs his phone and unlocks the screen. He squints at the text, waiting for his sleep-addled brain to assemble the letters into actual words.

It’s from Allison Argent.

Except it isn’t.

It’s from her phone, but the words aren’t hers.

_It’s Jason. I’m sorry for everything. I’m sorry._

Alex doesn’t even hesitate. He hits Allison’s number and lifts his phone to his ear.

“Alex?” Jason’s breathing heavily.

“Yeah,” Alex whispers. “It’s Alex.”

“I can’t—” Jason swallows with a lick. “I can’t talk, I’m sorry. Ally doesn’t know I’ve got her phone, and they’re all here, and everything is messed up and I’m so, so sorry, and please don’t hate me. Please.”

“I don’t hate you,” Alex says, tears stinging his eyes. “Just take a breath, okay? Just talk to me.”

“I _can’t_.” Jason’s breath catches. “Someone’s coming. I have to go.”

“Jason?”

For a moment he hears nothing but Jason’s rasping breath. Then: “Gerard made me choose, and I’m sorry. I had to pick Simon, Alex. I _had_ to.”

And then he ends the call.

Alex sits alone in the darkness, cradling his phone in his shaking hands.

Outside, the storm breaks.

 


	19. Chapter 19

(19)

All Alex remembers about Gerard Argent is the way his mouth turned up in a sneer when he saw Jason and Alex together, and Alex in a dress. That’s all he has to remember, he supposes. That, and the fact that the Argents hate the Hales.

The rain is hammering on the roof and the thunder is cracking as Alex pads his way down the hallway to his parents’ room. He’s still clutching his phone. Lightning illuminates his way.

When he was a kid he was a little scared of storms, and he would always end up in is parents’ bed, wedged between them. Them, and whichever other kids in the pack hadn’t been as brave as they wanted. He wonders if his parents miss it, now their kids are grown. He feels ridiculously like a child as he pushes their door open.

“Alex?” his dad mumbles.

Alex almost laughs when his dad lifts a corner of the comforter to welcome him into the bed, just like he always did. He climbs onto the end of the bed instead, in the small space that opens up for him between his parents.

His dad is still half asleep, but Talia is awake. She reaches out and flicks her bedside light on. “Alex?”

“Jason texted me,” Alex says, his heart pounding. “Just now, on Allison’s number. I called him back and talked to him.”

Talia sits up. “What happened?”

“He said he’s sorry. He said that Gerard Argent made him choose between Simon and me.” Alex holds his phone out to his mom and shows her the text message Jason sent. His hands are still shaking a little. “He said someone was coming and he couldn’t talk. That’s it.”

Talia’s face is grave.

“He sounded really scared, Mom,” Alex says.

“Jesus,” James mutters. “Tally?”

Talia lifts a hand to her chest. “It’s another pack’s business. I can’t…it’s the _Argents_.”

“What does that mean?” Alex asks. “That if it was some other pack you’d find a way to help him?”

His mother exhales shakily. “Alex, we came so close to a pack war after what happened with Kate and Derek. Do you know what a pack war does? It marks every member of my pack as a lawful combatant. Every pack member, every affiliate, from the oldest person down to the very last child. And don’t imagine for a second that a man like Gerard Argent wouldn’t take full advantage of that.”

Alex thinks of the footage he’s seen on pack wars throughout the world. He thinks of his older brother Patrick’s files full of photographs. Patrick and his mate Helena are journalists. They travel all around the world with their daughter Maxine. Alex has seen photographs of dead kids not much older than Max, kids who were too little to have any hope of knowing what they were being killed for, let alone any hope of defending themselves. He can’t imagine anything like that happening to his own pack, on their own territory. Pack wars always seem like something that can only happen in other countries.

“He’s a monster,” James says quietly, his words almost lost to a low rumble of thunder. “I think his hate is the only thing that fuels him.”

“He blames us for getting Kate locked up,” Talia says. “And there’s nothing he wouldn’t do to take revenge for that.”

“But Kate was crazy!” Alex says.

“Kate was very ill.” Talia purses her lips for a moment. “I think it’s easier for him to blame us for getting her put away than it is to face the fact that he could have helped her years before, but he didn’t. He just fed her his lies and his poison, and ruined any chance she had to seek help.”

“Please, Mom, there has to be some way to help Jason and Simon,” Alex says. “There has to be.”

“I don’t know,” Talia says, but she sounds uncertain. “I just don’t know.”

Alex doesn’t push. Talia has no right to interfere in another pack’s business, and it’s not as though Jason told him anything that Talia can take to the police, or to a pack summit or something. Really, what does Alex know for sure except that Jason is unhappy too? It doesn’t mean anything. It’s not even any consolation, really. Alex can’t take any solace in the fact that Jason hurts just as much as he does. It just hurts him more.

He curls up with his parents until the storm dies down.

Over the next few weeks Alex gets used to being at home again. He signs up for some courses online so he’ll still get his degree in a year, but he still doesn’t know what to do with that degree. He even finds himself missing Allison, and they way they laughed about how hopeless they were at being adults, before she found out that he was a Hale.

Derek once told him that nobody really remembered how the animosity between their packs began. Alex checks out a few of the books on local pack history in his mom’s library, but they don’t shed much light on things. He only knows relations were already strained before Kate attacked Derek, and after that they were irreparable. And who’d want to repair them anyway? It hadn’t mattered, until Jason.

Talia seems to take his interest in pack history as a sign Alex could help her out with pack business. He finds himself attending town meetings with her, and taking notes and helping her organize her hectic schedule. Alex has never been happier he’s not an alpha. It’s a lot of work. Most of it is dispute resolution, which is interesting enough, but it comes with so much political bullshit attached that Alex just wants to roll his eyes. For the first time he really sees why his mom is respected as not only the Hale alpha, but the Alpha of Beacon Hills. Talia is patient and compassionate, but she also doesn’t take any shit from anyone.

One night in the library he comes across a reference to the Argents as hunters.

It throws him, at first.

Wolves are born predators. They’re _all_ hunters.

It takes him a little while to understand.

The Argents hunted _humans_. They did it for generations, until, over twenty-five years ago, the last human died in captivity in New York. The last _known_ human. The Argents were paid by the government to round humans up and resettle them in camps, where they lived until they died, until humanity was bred out of existence. Gerard Argent is an old man, old enough to have been directly involved in what amounted to genocide.

Thank fuck the Argents had already left Beacon Hills by the time Stiles turned up and his dad and the others came to live in the Preserve. If there are more humans out there—and Alex believes there must be—Alex hopes that the Argents never find out about it and get the old family business up and running again.

And…oh _fuck_.

Alex sets the book down.

Jason knows about the humans. He’s known for years, and yet the Argents have never come back to Beacon Hills. Jason’s kept the secret. Whatever else has happened, and however terrible it’s been, he’s kept Stiles and the others a secret.

Of course he has.

Of course.

Because he’s _Jason_.

He’s not Jason Argent. He’s Jason Cormack, and he’s never forgotten that.

 

***

 

There’s a pack summit in San Diego. Talia and Deaton are going, and Talia decides that Alex should come as well. She’s also bringing Scott, because he’s still got a lot to learn about pack relations, and what better way to do it than get thrown into the middle? Derek is coming too, because Talia tells him it’s been too long since he represented the pack anywhere outside of Beacon Hills. Derek’s grumpy about it, because Stiles isn’t invited.

“Personally, I’d love to have him with us,” Talia says. “But not at a conference centre full of alphas. That boy would find himself on the end of a set of claws in a heartbeat.”

It’s true, probably. Stiles has never had to censor himself around the pack, but of course none of the Hales are going to rip him open in retaliation. Stiles might smell like a wolf now, but he sure as hell can’t heal like one.

“Will the Argents be there?” Alex asks.

“Yes,” Talia says. “I don’t know who. You won’t talk to them, Alex, okay? None of you will. Don’t even try it.” She curls her hand around the back of Alex’s neck. “Even if he brings Jason, okay?”

Alex swallows and nods, and quietly panics that he’s not ready for this.

 

***

 

They leave two days before the summit is due to start, and drive down to San Diego. Scott goes with Talia and Deaton in Talia’s car. Alex goes with Derek in the Camaro. They stop every hour so that Alex can pace up down by the side of the road and have a cigarette. He’s not allowed to smoke in Derek’s car.

Their frequent stops mean that they lose sight of Talia’s car pretty quickly. The drive is about ten hours. Derek and Alex take turns. When they stop for yet another cigarette break, somewhere near Mission Viejo, Derek leans on the hood and drinks the last of the coffee he got an hour back, and watches Alex pace.

“Thought you were quitting,” he comments as Alex drops his butt, grinds it into the dirt, and lights another one.

“Jesus, cut me some slack,” Alex says. “I’m kind of freaking out here, okay?”

“What for?” Derek asks.

“Because what if he’s there?” Alex’s shoulders slump. “And what if he’s not? I don’t know, okay. I just don’t fucking know. It shouldn’t make any difference how I feel, since I know there’s nothing we can do about it, but it _does_. Fuck. I think it’d actually be easier if I thought he didn’t care at all, but now I know he does, and I’m scared if I see him that I won’t be able to hide it, and I’ll just blurt everything out and make it so much worse.”

Derek crushes his coffee cup.

“I don’t think I’m ready for this,” Alex says. “Whatever the fuck it is, I’m not ready.”

“You’ll be okay,” Derek tells him steadily. “I’ve got you, Alex.”

Yeah.

Yeah of course he does.

Of course Talia didn’t tell Derek to come just because she thought he needed a change of scenery or something. Of course he’s there for Alex.

 

***

 

The hotel in San Diego is massive. When they check in, Alex is surprised to find out they’ve somehow beaten Talia despite all the stops they made along the way. It all makes sense when they head back to reception to meet for dinner, and there’s Peter, hands in his pockets, staring at everything like it’s all slightly beneath him.

Alex shoots a glance at his mom.

Peter hasn’t been to a pack summit in years. He detests pack politics, which Alex figures is probably a result of having been completely fucked over by them when he was younger, with Patricia. That he’s here now, at this pack summit, seems an unlikely coincidence.

At the nearby steakhouse Alex picks at his food and listens to Scott talk excitedly about the program for the summit. He’s particularly interested in the talk on intra-pack relations in urban areas, and how well it works in San Francisco, which has comparatively little violence compared to some other cities.

“Thinking of leaving us for the big smoke?” Deaton asks him quietly.

Scott’s jaw drops. “Oh, god, no! No way! I’d never leave Beacon Hills. It’s just interesting, that’s all!”

Deaton smiles, and pats Scott on the arm. “I’m teasing, Scott.”

Alex shovels his mashed potato around his plate.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, pup,” Peter says. “Eat something, before I hold you down and force feed you.”

Alex lifts his gaze. “I don’t see your name on the list of pack representatives, Peter.”

Peter shrugs and smiles. “I’m what you’d call an interested bystander.”

Interested, maybe. But bystander? Whatever’s going on, Peter’s in the thick of it like always.

“Mom?” Alex asks, raising his brows.

Talia exhales slowly. “Peter is here to make contact with the Argents.”

Alex tightens his grip on his fork.

Derek growls.

“Unofficially,” Talia says firmly. “I want to know exactly how Jason and Simon are being treated. I want to know if there’s anything we can do to help them that’s not going to end in a war.”

Derek growls again.

Scott’s eyes are as wide as saucers.

Deaton looks as calm and unruffled as always.

“But if it does end in a pack war,” Peter says helpfully, “you’re need all your strength. Eat your damned dinner, pup.”

Alex eats his damned dinner.

 

***

 

Derek has Stiles on speakerphone while he and Alex get ready for bed.

“…and,” Stiles says, taking a breath for the first time in a long time, “you need to buy me something to prove how much you’re missing me.”

“Do I?” Derek asks wryly.

“Of course. I’m buying you a present, so you have to buy me one. That’s how it works.”

“Where are you getting the money to buy me a present?” Derek’s voice is muffled as he pulls his shirt off.

“I sold a painting to Kaylee for the coffee shop,” Stiles says. “Two hundred bucks, Derek! I’m like rich! And, okay, so I’ve spent most of it already on sugar, and now I have a stomach ache, but I’m still getting you a present. So you need to get me one, okay? I want an orca.”

Alex can’t even pretend to be reading his book any more. He snorts.

“An orca?” Derek shakes his head. “Stiles, do you even know what an orca is?”

“I know they have them in San Diego,” Stiles says.

“An orca is a killer whale,” Derek tells him. “If I go anywhere near Seaworld I will buy you a toy orca, but I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t want a real one, even if I could fit it in the car.”

“Alex, make him buy me an orca!”

“You’re an idiot,” Alex tells him. “Goodnight, Stiles!”

“Goodnight!” Stiles yells back. “Der, take me off speaker for this next bit.”

Alex is pretty sure he can tell, by Derek’s blush, that whatever Stiles is going to say next he really doesn’t want to overhear.

“I’m going to take a shower,” he says, climbing out of bed and hurrying to the bathroom.

“Do me a favor,” Derek says. “Make it a long shower.”

No. No, Alex definitely doesn’t want to know.

He makes sure it’s a very long shower.


	20. Chapter 20

(19)

 

The pack summit is huge. There are hundreds of packs represented here, mostly from California and Arizona and Nevada. There are thousands of wolves. Their competing scents and overt posturing would make Alex nervous enough, without the possibility of running into the Argents also hanging over him. He tries to feel relieved that the conference centre attached to the hotel is so full. It’s easier to hide in a crowd, right?

Peter slinks off after breakfast on the first day, and Alex tries not to worry about what he’s up to, and whether making contact with the Argents and asking about Jason and Simon will somehow put them in danger. Talia and Deaton have a day full of meetings, so Scott and Derek and Alex check out a few of the panels. Alex notes that neither of them leave his side. They even escort him to the bathroom.

“Lucky I’m not having a girl day,” he tells them.

They exchange a glance, and Alex is simultaneously reassured and horrified to realize that they’d totally follow him into the ladies’ bathroom.

They have lunch at the hotel restaurant.

Then, when they’re heading back to the conference rooms, Alex senses him.

 _Jason_.

He whips his head around and tries to find him through the crowd.

It’s not his scent. It’s too crowded for that.

It’s something else.

It’s a pull.

It’s… it’s like invisible threads connecting them, and tugging at Alex. He can almost feel them snaking around his skin, and tightening. His breath hitches.

Derek looks at him sharply, then take him by the hand and leads him toward the exit. Alex lets this happen, because he can’t see Jason. Not here, not like this. He’ll mess it up if he does. He’ll make a mistake, do something to make the Argents mad and Jason will never get a chance to contact him again. Does he even want to? God, Alex doesn’t know.

Scott follows them outside into the atrium.

“Let’s go back to our room for a bit, okay?” Derek says in a low voice.

Alex closes his eyes and waits for his heart to stop racing. “He’s here.”

“I know.” Derek rubs his back. “Let’s go back to our room.”

“Okay,” Alex manages, swallowing. “Okay.”

 

***

 

It’s not a girl day. It’s not, but the wolf is restless. She’s pushing at him in a way she hasn’t pushed in months, in _years_ probably. She right below the surface of his skin, all sharp edges and teeth, and she’s snapping to get free. Alex’s whole body itches with it.

God.

She needs to get out of here.

She needs to just not be stuck in this body, stuck in this fucking _room_.

It’s not even close to the full moon yet, but she needs to _howl_.

 

***

 

Alex heads outside for a cigarette. He doesn’t take the elevator. He takes the stairs instead, hoping to shed some of his restless energy. Scott’s with him, looking increasingly worried as he senses Alex’s growing unease.

“What’s it like?” he asks as they make it outside and Alex lights up.

Alex paces back and forth under the scant shade of a row of palms. “What?”

“This bond thing,” Scott says. His brows draw together. “That’s what it is, right?”

“Maybe.” Alex drags on his cigarette, holding the smoke in until his lungs burn. “It’s, fuck, it’s like invisible wires. It’s like fishing hooks in my gut. I don’t know.”

Scott bites his lip. “I asked Deaton if it was different than being in love, but he didn’t know. But then I don’t really know what being in love feels like either.” He wrinkles his nose, looking embarrassed. “The only girl I ever thought I loved was Lydia, but I was like twelve, and she was the only girl my age in the camp, so, you know. It was probably just because she was there.”

Alex nods. He’d thought the same thing about Jason once, that Jason was _there_ , the only person who could look past all his freakiness and want him anyway, so of course Alex thought he loved him. Afterward he hadn’t been sure how much was real and how much was a construction, because he was young and because he was scared nobody else would ever want him. But proximity and convenience and wishful thinking don’t explain the physical pull he feels now, or the way his wolf is pushing close to the surface of his skin. The wolf doesn’t work in shades of doubt. She’s certain. Jason is _hers_ , and that’s all she needs to know.

Alex watches as a group of people step outside the hotel, making faces as the heat hits them. They take a moment to get their bearings, then head out across the gardens toward the conference center.

“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” Alex says. “I don’t know why Mom made me come.”

Scott shrugs. “Me neither, but she’s the alpha, right? She knows what she’s doing.”

Alex almost laughs at that. He wishes he had Scott’s simple faith, but there’s too much he doesn’t understand—about this, about the world, about himself—that he can’t trust anything. He stares down at the grass, dragging the toe of his trainer back and forth across a desiccated palm nut.

“Come on,” Scott says at last. “Let’s go back inside.”

 

***

 

They aren’t the only ones using the stairwell.

Alex catches Peter’s scent a second before he looks up to see him striding up the steps, a floor above them. He only catches a glimpse of the other man with him before a fire door squeals open and then shuts again, but it’s enough.

A lean figure. Graying hair.

It’s the man who came with Gerard all those years ago to collect Jason and Simon from the Hales.

It’s an Argent.

 

***

 

Dinner that night is a quiet affair. They go out to the steakhouse again, instead of eating at one of the hotel’s restaurants. Alex thinks that maybe his mom doesn’t want them to run into the Argents, but hell, maybe she just likes the steak here.

Peter doesn’t join them.

Talia and Deaton talk about the meetings they attended, and the established relationships they’re strengthening with other packs, which is the point of the summit. If pack wars are something Alex can’t imagine happening in America, it’s because of summits like these that give packs the chance to connect on neutral territory.

“Tomas Alvarez’s nephew Mateo wants to apply for a position as a ranger in Beacon Hills,” Talia says. “I’ve said I’m happy to have him living in our territory.”

“They’re good people,” Derek says. “A good pack.”

“He’s been working in Yosemite,” Talia says. “And he has a degree in environmental science. He’ll be an asset to our local rangers. He’s bringing his mate, David, who’s a kindergarten teacher. I don’t know if the kindergarten needs any new teachers, but apparently Mateo and David are in the process of adopting, so if David can’t get work he’ll stay at home with the little one for a year or so.”

Alex zones out while his mom talks. He’s still wired, but he’s tired as well. He wants to run. He also wants to curl up in bed and watch TV until he falls asleep. Okay, no, what he really wants is to drink so much that he can write himself off completely and just shut down his fucking brain. But, failing that, he’ll settle for pacing back and forth in the hotel gardens for a while, working his way through his pack of cigarettes.

The waiter asks if they want dessert.

“I’m pretty tired,” Alex says. “I think I’ll just go back?”

“I’ll come with you,” Scott says.

Talia nods at them and smiles.

They walk the long way back to the hotel. It’s a warm night. The air seems to lie heavily, pressed down by dark clouds sweeping in from the west. It smells like it’s going to rain.

Back at the hotel they stop by reception and Scott buys pretzels from a vending machine. Then they go outside so Alex can smoke.

“Pretzels are the best,” Scott says, crunching on them happily. “Seriously, the best.”

“Alex?”

Alex looks up sharply at the sound of her voice, his heart racing.

 _Allison_.

He straightens up, wary. “Allison, hey.”

Her eyes are wide in the soft darkness. She’s hugging her chest as though she’s a little cold. She opens her mouth, and then closes it again.

Scott looks between them, then shoves his packet out toward her. “Pretzel?”

Allison’s smile is as sweet as Alex remembers.

“Thanks,” she says, and takes one.

They stand there in silence for a moment, and Alex tries not to freak out.

“I know you don’t trust me,” Allison says at last. “How can you? But will you come with me for a minute? Please?”

Alex isn’t supposed to talk to the Argents. Not even if one of them is the girl he made friends with at the sandwich shop, who cut Manny down with a few well-chosen words, and who bitched about her internship so much that they could both only end up laughing about how terrible it was. She was his friend.

She was his friend, and he misses that.

“Okay,” he says.

“Alex!” Scott hasn’t been a wolf long enough to know that he could exert his authority on Alex. He’s older, and he’s following the alpha’s orders to watch him. He should growl and show his teeth, and knock Alex back into line, but, in his heart, Scott’s still a human.

“Please, Alex,” Allison says.

Alex falls into step beside her.

Scott hurries after them.

 

***

 

Allison leads them to a room on the third floor.

Scott’s freaking out a bit. “Alex?”

“I’m not trying to trick him, or hurt him,” Allison says. “Listen to my heartbeat.”

Scott looks to Alex for confirmation. He’s only been a wolf for a few years, and when he gets stressed he sometimes doesn’t trust his senses, or he just forgets to listen to them.

Alex’s senses though are heightened to the point of razor-sharp awareness as he stands in front of the door. His wolf doesn’t give a damn about Allison’s motivation. She could tell him the sky was purple with a steady heartbeat, and he wouldn’t care, because he knows who’s inside that room. His whole body thrums with the weight of the knowledge.

“It’s okay, Scott,” he says. “She’s not lying.”

Allison’s brow creases a little in confusion. “Why would you—”

“Salt,” Scott blurts, holding out his pretzels, and it’s an obvious fucking lie. It would be even if his heartbeat didn’t spike suddenly. Because, really, salt? “It messes me up, but I like pretzels too much not to eat them.”

Scott sometimes forgets that he can’t lie anymore. Alex figures he was never that good at it anyway.

“It’s a thing,” Scott insists in response to the look Allison gives him.

“Whatever,” Allison says warily.

“This isn’t a trap,” Alex says. “You’re not going to hurt me, or Scott.”

“I’m not,” she replies. There’s not even a hint of deception, but she’s looking at Scott like he’s a puzzle she can’t solve. “Of course I’m not.”

Alex pushes the door open.

Jason’s sitting on the end of the bed. His head jerks up as the door opens, and he jumps to his feet. “Alex!”

 _Jason_.

Alex moves toward him, because he can’t envision a universe where that doesn’t happen. The threads around them tighten, their arms do, and suddenly Alex is pressing his face against Jason’s throat and breathing in that scent he’s missed so, so much. It doesn’t matter that Jason is taller, broader, older. His scent is still the same, and it fills the places inside Alex that have ached at its loss for years.

He smells of long summer afternoons, of sun-baked earth, of pine and cedar and fresh rain. He smells like coffee and laundry soap and tears.

Alex closes his eyes as Jason tilts his throat back to scent him in return.

“You smoke now?” Jason asks him, his voice a little rough.

“Yeah.” Alex blinks his eyes open again. “Sorry.”

“I don’t care,” Jason says, his eyes shining with tears. “I don’t care.”

He brings their mouths together.

“Okay,” Allison says. “Um, me and Scott will wait outside.”

Alex doesn’t even hear them shut the door.

 

***

 

They stand there, tangled together, kissing, and scenting, and murmuring words of old loss and new discovery. Alex traces his thumb over Jason’s cheekbone, collecting a fallen tear.

“The first night,” Jason says, his breath hitching. “We were at a hotel. Chris went out to get takeout. Simon hadn’t stopped crying all day, and Gerard just…he just snapped. Simon said he wanted to go back to your pack, and Gerard picked him up by the throat and just _threw_ him on the bed. He said, he said if we ever mentioned the Hales again, he’d rip our throats out.”

Alex curls his fingers around the back of Jason’s neck, and kisses him softly.

“I’m so sorry. Alex, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay. It doesn’t matter.”

“It wasn’t even so bad at first,” Jason says. “When Chris was there, it was okay. Ally was in college, so I didn’t really know her, but it wasn’t so bad. Then Chris went away longer and longer for his work, and Gerard was always there, always in my face telling me how fucked up I was for liking a—” His expression hardens. “Bad enough I liked a Hale, but I also had to pick an unnatural freak?”

Alex flinches.

“I never thought that about you,” Jason whispers. “Never. You were my best friend, and my boyfriend and my girlfriend, but whenever I tried to tell him, he’d say that if I tried to go back to you, that I’d never see Simon again. And if he found out I’d chosen the Hales over the pack, if I _betrayed_ him, he’d come back to California and retake Beacon Hills.” Jason’s voice breaks. “He’s mad, Alex. He’s a fucking _psycho_.”

Alex curls his fingers in Jason’s hair and rests their cheeks together.

Jason’s breath is loud in his ear. “So I pretended I forgot you. I pretended you didn’t matter. I agreed to get mated to Ebony so he’d let me transfer to USF and at least I’d get out of Phoenix for a while.”

Alex’s hand trembles against the back of Jason’s neck. “You don’t have a bond with her?”

“She’s a nice girl, but no. I don’t feel a bond. I don’t love her.” Jason pulls back so he can look Alex in the eye. “I love _you_. I’ve always loved you, and only you.” His expression hardens. “We’re waiting until I graduate before we make it official. That’s like in a couple of months. And I thought I was okay with it, until I saw you again.”

Alex swallows, and nods.

“I told Ally a bit about you,” Jason says. “Not much, but she’s pretty smart, you know? I never knew you were the kid from the sandwich shop.”

“I never knew you were the cousin,” Alex whispers. He tries to smile though his tears, and feels it falter.

“Alex…” Jason lifts a trembling hand and places it against his cheek. “I don’t care what happens to me anymore, but I’m scared for Simon. Simon used to be terrified of Gerard, but now it’s like he worships him or something. I’m scared he’s going to make him like Kate, and I don’t know how to help him.”

“Oh,” Alex breathes. “Oh, fuck. I’m so sorry.”

“And you know what I keep thinking?” Jason shakes his head and his expression twists into something painful, something almost self-mocking. “I keep thinking that if only my parents had left ten minutes later that day, everything wouldn’t be so fucked up. Why didn’t they, Alex? Why didn’t my dad lose his fucking keys like every other time? Why did he have to remember exactly where he left them that day?”

There’s no answer that Alex can give him except to hold him tight while he cries.


	21. Chapter 21

(19)

 

 

It’s quiet.

Alex and Jason have been sitting on the bed for a while, fingers entwined. Sometimes they kiss, and each time Alex feels a spark of something like wonder ignite and then burst inside him. He never thought he’d have this again. He never thought he’d have Jason again. And, even if it’s only for now, for however long they have in this bland little hotel room, it’s what he wants. He’ll take it, and worry about the heartbreak later. Happiness is too rare to refuse, even when it comes with razor sharp edges like this. Alex will grab it with both hands, even if it cuts him.

The room smells like cleaning fluid and fresh linen. It doesn’t smell lived in at all. Alex notices for the first time that it’s empty. There is no luggage on the floor, no clothing strewn around, no coins scattered on the nightstand.

“This isn’t your room,” he says.

“No.” Jason shrugs. “I’m on the sixth floor, with Ally. She got this room so you and I could talk for a while and it’d be safe. Except I’m still gonna smell like you, I guess.” His brow creases with worry.

“No, it’s okay,” Alex says. “You take a shower. Use all the body wash. Then take a run after, so you sweat. And make sure you double bag your clothes if you can’t wash them straight away. And there’s a pool here too, so, yeah. Take a swim too. Chlorine is really good for hiding scent.”

Jason smiles. “What are you, a spy or something?”

Alex drops his hand.

“Alex?”

Alex frowns at the wall. “When you left, I, um, I got mixed up with a bad crowd. Did a lot of stuff I shouldn’t have. I learned how to mask scents pretty quickly.”

“Oh.” Jason sounds a little puzzled.

“I fucked around with a bunch of people,” Alex tells him. “So, um, yeah. That’s how I dealt. Also, I can’t drink now because I’m an alcoholic, I guess. I mean, I definitely was one, and now I don’t know. But I can’t drink now, just in case.” He tries to make his next words sound like a joke, but he can’t: “So, you still love me?”

“Yes,” Jason says quietly, with no trace of hesitation. “Of course I do.”

He takes Alex’s hand again, and Alex sags with relief. “So, um, this is the part where you tell me all the dumb shit you’ve done so I don’t feel like such a loser.”

“You’re not a loser,” Jason says. He bumps their shoulders together. “I’m sorry you were so sad. I’m really sorry.”

“Hey.” Alex curls toward him and slides his arms around him again. “It’s not your fault. I know that.” He breathes in Jason’s scent and closes his eyes. “You never did anything dumb, did you? Never got drunk and fucked around?”

“No.” Jason sighs. “No, I’ve only ever done…well, in Dad’s car after the dance. That was the only time.”

“Not even with Ebony?”

“No.”

_Oh god._

Alex’s heart breaks. He hates himself. “I should have waited! I should have waited for you.”

“Don’t,” Jason says. He cups Alex’s face in his hands and kisses him softly. “Don’t. It doesn’t matter, okay? Whatever happened then, it doesn’t matter.”

“You should have been my first, and I should have been yours,” Alex whispers.

“You were,” Jason says. “We were, after the dance. That counts.”

Yeah, but if that counts, so did every time that Alex blew some stranger at The Jungle, or got fucked over the hood of a car, drunk out of his skull and telling himself that he was okay, that he was in control, that he was having _fun_ and nothing could touch him.

“I want to do it now,” Alex whispers. “If this is the only chance we get, I want to do it.”

Jason’s eyes are wide. “Are you…are you sure? I mean, you’re having an in between day, right?”

“Yeah,” Alex breathes. “Boy and a girl today, but I want you.”

Just the thought of it makes him hard, and he’s not ashamed of that. So what if the wolf is a girl, and she’s pressing at him hard today? So he can be a girl with a dick. So what? He wants Jason. The boy wants him too; the wolf’s influence is so strong with Jason around that Alex can't even imagine not being attracted to him. He's a long way from having a total boy day, a _straight_ day. The boy wants him, and the girl wants him. Alex’s two halves have never been more in accord.

“O-okay,” Jason says, his face turning bright red.

Alex knows what to do, even though it wasn’t like this with anyone else. It’s not just about getting off. When he pushes Jason down onto the bed and straddles his hips, it’s about getting closer, as close as two people can get. It’s about kissing and touching, and feeling skin on skin. It’s about solace and love and knitting their broken hearts back together for as long as they can.

Alex fumbles with the buttons on Jason’s shirt, and slides the fabric off him.

“Holy shit,” he whispers. “You got _hot_.”

Jason blushes as Alex runs his fingers down his abs, making the muscles jump under his skin. “You did, you did too. You’re handsome, and pretty too.”

Alex smiles. “Yeah?”

Jason’s blush deepens. “Yeah.”

Alex reaches down for the hem of his t-shirt, and tugs it over his head. “Not as many muscles as you though.”

Jason lifts his shaking hands to Alex’s hips. “You’re perfect.”

Alex leans down and kisses him. He could lose himself in Jason’s kisses. He wants to, except for the low-burning desire in his belly that demands more. He rocks his hips, shivering as he feels Jason’s erection pressing against him.

“Okay,” he says, clambering off. “There’s like lotion in the bathroom. Don’t move, okay, don’t move!”

When he gets out of the bathroom again, the small bottle of complimentary lotion clutched in his hand, Jason’s wriggling out of his khakis and underwear. His blush extends halfway down his torso, and he moves his hands to cover his dick like he’s got something to be ashamed of.

Alex remembers how shy and nervous they both were that night after the dance, hardly able to look at each other. For the first time maybe he doesn’t totally hate himself for screwing those other guys whose faces he doesn’t even remember. Okay, so he’ll never not regret it, but at least he knows what to do here. At least they won’t both be crippled by embarrassment and indecision.

He sets the lotion on the end of the bed and thumbs the button on his jeans. “Scoot up a bit, okay?”

Jason nods, biting his lower lip.

Alex toes off his trainers, and shoves his jeans and underwear down. He’s not built, like Jason. He’s kind of a twink, he guesses. That’s okay. That suits him. He wouldn’t look as pretty in a dress if he was made of muscle. He climbs onto the bed again, and straddles Jason’s thighs.

“This is, um, this is kind of the gross bit,” he says, reaching for the lotion.

It’s been years since he did this, but it’s not exactly the sort of skill that’s easy to forget. He squirts the lotion on his fingers, then reaches around behind himself. It’s awkward, at this angle, and his fingers make a horrible squelching sound as he presses them inside himself, and, okay, here comes his embarrassment now: a burning hot wave of it. Alex bows his head and lets his hair curtain his face.

Jason lifts his hand and brushes his hair back. Kisses him. He keeps one hand on Alex’s hip. The other one slides around behind him, and feels down the crack of his ass. Alex gasps when Jason’s fingers brush his own.

“Can I?” Jason whispers.

“Yeah.” Alex moans as two of Jason’s fingers replace his own. “Oh, Jesus.”

Jason’s eyes are wide. “I’m probably not gonna last, Alex.”

“That’s okay.” Alex leans in and nips at his lower lip. “If you don’t, we can get me off another way, yeah?”

“Yeah.” A shudder runs through Jason as though he’s the one with fingers up his ass. His eyes flash gold.

Jason twists his fingers inside a while longer, stopping twice to get more lotion.

“Okay, now,” Alex says. He squirts more lotion on his hand and uses it to slather Jason’s dick. It’s already so hot, so hard, and so fucking wet that it probably doesn’t need much. Alex closes his fingers around it firmly but gently, then raises himself up and angles Jason’s cock properly. He slides back down slowly, the thick head pushing in.

“Alex!” Jason freezes in shock.

Alex seats himself fully, curling his fingers around his aching dick. The stretch and the burn is fucking incredible. It’s _Jason_. Jason’s inside him. Alex’s wolf howls, triumphant.

“It’s okay,” Alex whispers, leaning in to kiss him. “God, you feel amazing.”

Jason is breathing heavily already. “Oh fuck. Alex.”

“Move when you’re ready,” Alex groans, tightening around him.

“Not gonna last,” Jason gasps.

Alex kisses him again. “Me neither.”

 

***

 

Maybe it’s awkward and messy and over really fast.

Maybe Jason comes on like his third stroke, and Alex has to jerk himself off while Jason gasps for breath underneath him.

Maybe neither of them are ever going to be porn stars.

It doesn’t matter.

Maybe it’s not perfect, but, also, it is.

It is.

 

***

 

“Jason! Alex!”

Alex almost falls off the bed when he hears Allison knocking frantically.

He stumbles around, tugging his clothes on, while Jason does the same.

“You guys,” Allison calls. “It’s my dad!”

_Fuck fuck fuck._

The room stinks of sex. They stink of each other.

Alex has only just got his jeans back on when the door is pushed open.

It’s the man with the graying hair. His face is careworn, and stubbled. His eyes are very blue. He stares at them, his expression terrifyingly blank.

“Uncle Chris!” Jason moves around in front of Alex. His shirt is still unbuttoned. So are his khakis.

“Dad,” Allison says, moving into the room behind him. “Dad, let me explain, okay?”

Scott steps inside too. He looks petrified.

“Alex _Hale_ ,” Chris says, his gaze flicking between Alex and Jason and back again. “So this is what it’s all about.”

Suddenly all Alex can think of is the joke Allison made about her gun-dealing father and wolfsbane bullets, that first day in the shop. He’s going to be the first casualty in a pack war that will tear the west coast apart.

_Oh god._

“Dad,” Allison says again.

And then Peter appears in the doorway, a slight smile turning up the edges of his mouth. “Really, Alex? This is where I find you after your alpha specifically told you not to speak to any Argents? Although I suppose there might not have been much speaking involved.”

Alex opens his mouth, then closes it again. _What?_

Chris Argent turns on Peter. “This is why you approached me? All that talk of reestablishing relations between our packs? All that bullshit about how now was the time for diplomacy?”

“Now _is_ the time for diplomacy,” Peter says, his gaze hardening. “Precisely because of this. Frankly, Chris, I appealed to your better nature because I happen to remember that you’re one of the few Argents who actually managed not to have it stamped out of you by your psychotic father.”

“You’re a fucking liar, Peter,” Chris says.

There’s something in the way he says it that makes Alex’s breath catch. The way he says it like it’s something familiar, something he’s said it a thousand times before. The words sound almost raw.

Chris shakes his head. “I don’t know how you do it, but you lie.”

“I can’t lie,” Peter says, his lip curling. “And I didn’t lie. It just so happens that the truth is not one that you find convenient.”

“The _truth_?” Chris’s eyes blaze.

“Yes.” Peter folds his arms across his chest. “It was your father who destroyed the last of the goodwill that existed between our packs. He poisoned Kate’s mind. He turned her into a loaded weapon he then pointed in our direction. And for what? For _revenge_? Nobody even fucking remembers what we were fighting about in the first place!”

If this is Peter’s version of diplomacy, Alex would hate to see him when he says what he really thinks. He reaches out and curls his fingers through the belt loops on the back of Jason’s khakis.

Chris spreads his fingers as though his claws are itching to appear.

“There was a time when our packs existed side by side in Beacon Hills. Remember that? Remember what that was like?” Peter softens his tone. “You were born there too. I know you feel the pull of the land. Why not work to make it your home again?”

“That can never happen,” Chris says, his fingers relaxing again.

“Yes, well,” Peter says. “It’s hard to talk about peace when it’s a word your father refuses to hear.”

Chris closes his eyes for a moment. When he opens them again, his gaze settles on Jason and Alex. “Jason, get cleaned up. If he smells that on you…”

Jason nods, and turns to face Alex.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m sorry.”

Alex cups his cheek with his palm. “I know. Me too.”

“I want you so much.” Jason blinks as his eyes fill with tears. “I wish it didn’t have to be like this.”

“Me too.” Alex closes his eyes as Jason presses their foreheads together. Suddenly he’s fifteen again, and he and Jason are sitting on the couch, and he never said it. He never said it then when the universe was ripping them apart. When their packs were. So he says it now. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Jason whispers back, and then he’s stepping away.

Alex’s heart forgets to beat. He has to force himself not to reach out for Jason, to wrap himself around him again, and for forever.

“Okay, pup,” Peter says, moving forward at last.

Alex steps into his embrace, sobbing.

“Okay.” Peter rubs his back. “I’ve got you.”

Alex buries his face in Peter’s throat as the Argents leave. He can’t bear watch them take Jason away from him again.

 

***

 

Peter takes Alex to his room to he can get cleaned up, and sends Scott to fetch him fresh clothes.

Alex spends a long time in the shower. When he comes back out, wrapped in a towel, Peter is sitting on his bed staring at the cheap abstract print on the wall.

“Awful,” he says at last. “Just…it makes me want to tear my own eyes out.”

Alex tries for a smile.

“You know those people who say they don’t like art, but they know what they like?” Peter raises his brows thoughtfully. “I think this was designed by a committee filled entirely with those people.”

“It’s just a picture,” Alex says.

“Nonsense.” Peter glares at the offending artwork. “Art should make a statement, Alex. It should speak to us. Do you know what this says to me?”

Alex shakes his head.

“This says, _I’ve lost my will to live. Do not resuscitate_. I’ve seen pictures painted by elephants that have more humor and pathos and emotion.” He shrugs. “Of course, I’ve also seen massive diarrhetic shits by elephants that have more humor and pathos and emotion.”

Alex snorts.

Peter continues to glare at the painting.

“Peter, are you going to tell Mom what happened tonight?”

“No, pup, I don’t think I am.” Peter glances at him. “I don’t think that would accomplish anything.”

“But what about diplomacy?” Alex asks. “Did we screw that all up?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Peter says mildly. He shrugs. “But diplomacy was never going to stand a chance with the Argents. What do you think your mother’s been trying for years? Luckily, I have a better idea.”

“What?” Alex asks warily.

Peter smiles. “Violence.”

Fear squeezes Alex’s chest. “No! We can’t start a pack war, Peter!”

“Of course we can’t, pup,” Peter says, his smile growing slightly and turning a little sour at the edges. “What we’re going to start is a pack revolt.”


	22. Chapter 22

(19)

 

 

The next morning Peter is late for breakfast. When he finally turns up at the Hales’ table, he slumps into his chair, groans, and puts his head on the table.

“Hungover?” Talia asks him archly.

Peter lifts his hand and shows her the tiny space between his thumb and forefinger. “Who do I have to blow to get a coffee?”

Scott almost chokes on his orange juice.

“I’ll get you one,” Derek says, then flushes as everyone looks at him. “Because he’s hungover, not because…oh, Jesus.”

He leaves the table, muttering under his breath.

Peter straightens up. “I do love it when Derek embarrasses himself.”

Talia rolls her eyes at him, and goes back to discussing the day’s schedule with Deaton.

Alex picks at his stack of pancakes as he listens. He wonders, and not for the first time, exactly what Peter is planning, and if his mom has any idea. He thinks that maybe she knows he’s up to something—Peter is _always_ up to something—but also that maybe she doesn’t want to know the details. 

“Thank you, Derek,” Peter says when Derek returns with his coffee. “You are a precious angel.”

Derek grunts at him.

The hotel restaurant is massive, and it’s full of different packs. Alex knows a few of them. Others, he has to try and sneak a look at the cards hanging from their lanyards in passing. He knows the Argents though. Everyone knows the Argents.

There’s a sudden lull in the noise of hundreds of competing conversations when the Argent pack enters the dining room. It might be respectful, it might be fearful, it might even be hostile. Alex can’t tell. A moment later the noise picks up again.

Alex glances over toward the buffet. He sees Allison and Jason and Chris loading up their plates. There are another two men with them. Gerard Argent is sitting at an empty table. It’s not empty for long. Several people from other packs approach him. He leans back in his chair and smiles like a king receiving an audience in a court.

Alex can’t help glancing at Talia. Her expression is carefully neutral, but there’s a tightness around her eyes as she watches.

“That man fascinates me,” Peter says, sipping at his coffee. “What do you think he sees when he looks in the mirror?”

“Do monsters know they’re monsters, do you mean?” Derek asks.

Peter extends a claw and taps it on the table. “Oh, I’m fairly sure we’re all monsters, Derek. But I rather suspect that Gerard Argent thinks he’s something different.”

A king, Alex thinks, definitely a king.

He turns away again before Gerard sees him watching.

 

***

 

Alex doesn’t know what it takes to start a pack revolt. He’s not sure that Peter does either, because apart from occasionally disappearing over the next few days, he just tends to hang around reading books on art history and judging people’s fashion choices.

“Horizontal stripes, really? Such a shame.”

There’s _something_ going on though. Whenever they cross paths with the Argents, usually in some very public space, Alex sees the way that Chris Argent’s gaze settles on Peter every time. And, although Peter pretends not to notice, of course he sees it too.

And Chris isn’t the only one looking at the enemy. Scott can’t stop staring at Allison whenever she’s anywhere nearby.

He is ridiculous.

“What even happened to you the other day?” Alex asks him, lighting a cigarette. They’re alone in the garden. Derek said something about going to track down a stuffed orca. Derek is pretty ridiculous too. He’ll probably end up having to pay for entry into Seaworld just to get into the gift shop.

Scott grins his lopsided grin. “She’s just…she’s really cool, okay? I showed her the pictures of the rescue kittens we got in last month, and she didn’t even laugh when I told her I’d named them after the Ninja Turtles, not the renaissance artists.”

“Weren’t there only four Ninja Turtles, and like five kittens?”

“We called the last one Steve.”

“Wow.” Alex raises his eyebrows. “Poor Steve.”

“That’s what Allison said!”

Alex looks up as Peter approaches. He’s wearing his sunglasses and an open shirt, with a towel slung over his shoulder. “Ah, there you both are. I was just on my way to the pool. Who wants to join me?”

“Awesome!” Scott exclaims, his face lighting up.

Alex shrugs. “Sure.”

“Go and get changed then,” Peter says. “I’ll stay here and mind Alex’s cigarettes.”

The pack is a little lighter by the time they get back.

The pool is nice. Scott unsurprisingly gets roped into playing Marco Polo with a bunch of little kids, so Alex and Peter move to the deeper end away from the noise.

“Peter, what exactly at you doing?”

Peter regards him for a moment. “Are you sure you want to know, pup?”

“Yes.”

“I’m applying pressure,” Peter says quietly. “The Argents aren’t like us. That’s what everyone always says about their enemy, of course, but in this case it happens to be true. Gerard isn’t the same sort of alpha Talia is. Your mother is in charge, but she’s not a despot. She doesn’t use fear to keep her betas in line.”

Alex frowns slightly, thinking of Chris and Allison. They don’t exactly seem like fearful people.

“Fear is an interesting thing,” Peter says, making lazy circles in the water with his hands. “It’s insidious, when it’s subtle. You pile enough on a vulnerable person, or a child, and it entirely reshapes their psyche.” He frowns a little. “Your grandfather… well, let’s just say that I might not have been such an obedient little pawn if he hadn’t spent so long reminding me as a child that I could so very easily become an omega.”

Alex feels a sudden chill.

Peter catches his look and shrugs. “And I don’t think he even intended to instill that fear in me. He wasn’t a bad man. He just didn’t know how else to deal with a brat like me.”

“So he threatened to throw you out of the pack?” Alex asks, incredulous.

“No, no, no.” Peter raises his brows. “He just reminded me how very simple a process like that could be.” He snorts. “He wasn’t malicious, Alex. To him, it was no different than telling me that not crossing the road before looking was dangerous. Except when I was a kid, a part of me really thought he meant the omega stuff. It’s only looking back that I realize he probably said the same thing to all the kids, but I was the only one who took it to heart.”

Alex nods. The idea of losing his pack is terrifying on a primal level, even though Alex doesn’t believe there’s anything he could do that would ever make them reject him. If the past few years have taught him anything, it’s that. It horrifies him that Peter didn’t always feel the same certainty.

“So there you have fear,” Peter says. “Quite accidentally instilled, but there all the same. Now imagine someone like Gerard, who very intentionally set out to mold every one of his betas into his own image, and who knows exactly how to terrify them into submission.”

“Chris Argent doesn’t exactly seem terrified though.”

“No, he’s not,” Peter says. “Strange how the mind rationalizes abuse. How it conditions itself not to see it, or to excuse it. Chris tells himself that respect and fear are the same thing. It’s easier for him to tell himself he respects his father’s authority, to take the path of least resistance and fall into line, when in fact he’s too afraid to cross the old man.”

“You knew him before, didn’t you?” Alex asks. “In Beacon Hills.”

“Yes.”

There’s something in his tone that makes Alex wonder if Derek was the first Hale who got involved with an Argent.

He picks a leaf up off the surface of the pool and sets it on the edge. “So how do you apply enough pressure to make someone like Chris challenge his alpha?”

“Well, that’s the tricky part,” Peter says. “Chris is deeply, let’s say _uncomfortable_ about the way his father runs the pack. That whole business with Kate really shook him up. I think it’s the only time he dared stand up to Gerard, to prevent a pack war. But he’s always been loyal. Loyal to a fault, actually.”

Down the other end of the pool, the kids are squealing and Scott’s laughing.

“Why did you tell Derek to date Kate?” Alex asks quietly.

Peter meets his gaze. “What did Derek tell you?”

Alex remembers their talk from years ago. “He said you told him the crazy ones were wild in bed.”

“That seems like the sort of advice I’d give,” Peter agrees. He runs his fingers along the surface of the water, making droplets dance.

“Really?” Alex asks. He knows there’s more to it than that. There’s always more with Peter. “Come on.”

“I was stupid,” Peter says. “I thought it’d be hilarious when Gerard found out. What a kick in the balls, can you imagine? I certainly didn’t think Kate would try and kill Derek.”

Alex doesn’t think he’s ever seen that expression on Peter’s face. It’s full of regret, and of old pain. God, he really shouldn’t ask, but a part of him needs to know. He’s always thought that Peter understood him, but maybe it’s not just sympathy. Maybe Peter knows exactly how he feels because once upon a time he was in this exact same position.

“Did you want to hurt the Argents because of Chris?” Alex asks, his voice hushed.

For a moment Peter doesn’t answer. Then he smiles slightly. “You’re too perceptive, pup. Yes, it wasn’t just Gerard’s face I wanted to see when he found out. It was Chris’s too. I hated him for a long time for not being courageous enough to tell his father about us. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this about me, Alex, but I can really hold a grudge.”

“Yeah, I noticed.” Alex tries to smile at Peter’s wry self-depreciation, but he can’t quite manage it. He wipes water out of his eyes. “So do you think Chris will really challenge Gerard?”

“I hope so,” Peter says. “Logically he knows how dangerous Gerard is. Practically, it’s a little more complicated. A crazy fuck like Gerard Argent doesn’t get to stay in charge without making sure there are fail safes in place.”

“What do you mean?”

“He plays his entire pack against one another,” Peter says. “Chris, despite being his son, has managed to stay on the sidelines for years because he’s away so often for work. And it’s no accident that Allison went away to college, like Jason is. That’s Chris’s influence. He’s getting them out of Gerard’s reach the only way he thinks he can. I just need to make him see that it’s not enough. If he challenges Gerard though, and if he wins, there’s no way to know if the rest of the pack will fall into line. There are more rival factions in the Argent pack than you’ll find at a pack summit in the Middle East, and Gerard is the only thing keeping them from ripping each other apart.”

Alex shivers despite the heat of the day.

“He’s always reminded me of one of those Egyptian pharaohs,” Peter says. “The sort that, when they die, order hundreds or thousands of slaves killed as well. Gerard’s so terrified of death that he’ll take as many of his pack with him when he goes as possible.”

Alex holds his breath for a moment. It seems incongruous somehow for Peter to say something like that when, down the other end of the pool, kids are laughing and yelling and splashing.

“Are you serious?” he asks at last.

Peter nods slightly. “Absolutely. If Gerard Argent dies, even through a legitimate challenge from a beta, it’ll be a fucking mess.”

“How…” Alex swallows. “How do we stop that?”

“We don’t,” Peter says, his voice hard. “We just hope the few of them worth saving aren’t caught in the fallout.”

 

***

 

Alex hasn’t had a nightmare in years.

He has one that night.

He sees Jason lying on the floor with his throat ripped open, and wakes up screaming.

“Alex!” Derek is hauling him upright. “Alex?”

Alex is too upset to speak for a long time. When he finally calms down, Derek’s arms around him, he wipes his face. “I’m so scared, Der.”

“What are you scared of?” Derek asks him, his voice gentle.

Alex’s breath hitches. “Everything.”

 

***

 

It’s the last day of the summit.

If anything’s going to happen, Alex knows it’s today.

“Where’s Scott?” Derek asks him in a low voice at breakfast.

“I don’t know,” Alex says, frowning.

“He sent me a text last night saying he was going to the Air and Space Museum,” Deaton offers.

A text, Alex thinks, so that Deaton couldn’t read his heartbeat.

Peter meets his gaze.

Derek doesn’t say anything else but, after breakfast, he grabs Peter by the wrist and pulls him back so he can’t get into the same elevator as Talia and Deaton.

“If Scott’s at the Air and Space Museum, why does his phone say he’s on the I-8 heading west?”

Alex’s eyes widen.

“You’re tracking Scott’s phone?” Peter asks. “Where’s the trust?”

“Peter!”

“Scott’s taking care of a little problem,” Peter says, lowering his voice. “The less you know about it, the better.”

Derek looks stricken. “Peter!”

“I’m serious, Derek,” Peter says. “You need to stay out of this. The best thing you can do is go and listen to a few panels. Be visible. Talk to people. _Smile_.”

“Peter…”

“I’ve got this, Derek,” Peter says. “Fingers crossed.”

Derek looks like he’s about the argue some more, and then he sighs and his shoulders slump. “Whatever the fuck is going on, is there anything I can do to help?”

“I’m sure a small sacrifice to a particularly vengeful pagan god wouldn’t go astray,” Peter says. “Maybe a sparrow or a pigeon? No need to go crazy with a whole ox or anything.”

Derek shows him his bitch face.

“I’ve got this,” Peter repeats. His gaze shifts to Alex. “Gonna need you to step up though, pup.”

Alex’s stomach clenches. “How?”

“Let’s just say I know of a way to apply the exact pressure we need,” Peter says. “Can I count on you?”

“Yes.” Alex is terrified, but he can’t refuse.

“Alex, you don’t even know what you’re agreeing to!” Derek exclaims.

“No,” Alex agrees, “but I know who it’s for.”

It’s for Jason.

There’s nothing Alex won’t do.

 

***

 

It’s late afternoon when Alex gets the text from Peter:

_Meet me for dinner at 10 minutes to 6. Don’t be late._

Alex sends back: _ok_.

He has no idea what’s going on, but this is for Jason.

When he gets downstairs at exactly ten minutes to six, Peter is lurking outside the hotel restaurant.

“Your mother and Derek and Deaton are meeting us at six,” Peter tells him. “When the Argents arrive, when Jason goes to the buffet, I want to you to go up there. I want you to start a conversation with him.”

“Okay,” Alex says, trying and failing to swallow down his nerves. “Is that it?”

Peter smiles and cups a hand around the back of his neck. “Yes, pup, that’s it.”


	23. Chapter 23

(19)

 

“I’m sorry,” Talia says, looking around the table with a slight frown. “Where is Scott again?”

Deaton looks slightly concerned. “I’d thought he’d be back by now as well.” He pulls his phone out of his pocket and checks it. “Oh, I had it on silent. He says he’s running a little late.”

“Well, then,” Peter says cheerfully, as though that solves that.

The restaurant isn’t full yet, but there are a few packs already eating. It’s kind of early for dinner for most people, Alex guesses. A few waiters wander around taking drink orders. A girl brings a tureen of soup out for the buffet. Conversations rise and fall all around the room.

Alex tries to relax, but the knot in his gut is just growing bigger.

Alex looks up as the doors slide open and the Argents enter, with Gerard at their head. Chris and the other two betas walk behind him, and Jason brings up the rear.

Allison’s not with them.

Just like at breakfast, Gerard takes his seat and waits for someone else to bring him food from the buffet.

Peter catches Alex’s gaze.

“I’m going to get more salad,” Alex says.

“Make it pasta salad,” Peter tells him. “You’re too skinny, pup.”

Alex rolls his eyes and tries to pretend he’s not absolutely freaking out. He tries not to drag his feet as he crosses the floor. Tries not to succumb to the temptation to turn tail and just get the fuck out of there.

He’s doing this, whatever the hell it is, for Jason.

He meets Jason at the pasta bar. “Hey.”

Jason almost drops his plate. He looks over his shoulder toward Gerard before he turns back and flashes Alex a nervous smile. “Hey. Um, we probably shouldn’t…”

So Jason has no idea what’s going on either.

“Yeah, I know,” Alex says. “But, um, I just wanted to say hi.” He lowers his voice. “And I wanted to make sure you didn’t get in trouble the other day.”

“No, um.” Jason sets his plate down. “No, Chris didn’t say anything. And I guess I covered your scent okay because nobody else seemed to notice anything.”

Alex doesn’t have to feign his relief at that. “So, are you guys leaving tomorrow?”

“Yeah.” Jason bites his lip. “Alex, we really shouldn’t be—”

And then it’s too late. Either everything is totally fucked up or it’s going completely to plan, because Gerard Argent is suddenly right there, clapping a hand on Jason’s shoulder and digging his claws in hard enough to make him wince.

“What the hell is this?” he drawls, his narrow gaze sliding over Alex. His lip curls. “Oh, it’s the little Hale bitch.”

Alex freezes.

“Alpha,” Jason says. “I’m sorry, we were just talking.”

Gerard leans in close and sniffs. “You smell like you want to fuck this little freak, Jason.”

Alex’s gut churns. In so many ways this is just like it was every day in high school. Some fucking asshole with a filthy mouth and a twisted up face calling him a freak. Except this time it’s not just Alex shivering in anticipation of violence as inevitable as the dawn. This time it’s Jason too.

They’re both terrified.

“Alpha,” Jason whispers. “Please don’t.”

Gerard sneers. “Or did you already? Did you already fuck it?”

Jason’s wide gaze holds Alex’s.

He’s a wolf. He can’t lie.

He opens his mouth and closes it again. His silence damns him.

Gerard spins Jason around, shoving him into the salad bar so hard that the plates stacked at the other end clatter against one another. From a nearby table someone gasps, and Alex knows the entire place must be watching his humiliation, and Jason’s. Jason is shaking, head tilted so his throat is bared in submission, eyes closed. “Alpha, alpha, _please_.”

Alex steps toward him without thinking, but suddenly there are arms around him and he’s being pulled back. Derek. And then his mom’s there too, stepping between Alex and Gerard.

The whole dining room has fallen silent. Alex doesn’t know how many people are openly staring. He can’t tell because his vision is clouded with tears.

“Alpha Argent,” Talia says. “What’s going on here?”

“What’s going on,” Gerard growls, “is you set your little bitch on my grandson!”

“My child is not a bitch.”

“Whatever it is,” Gerard sneers, “I’ll keep it for last before I rip its throat out!”

Talia growls, a deep, threatening rumble.

Gerard’s face is red with anger. His claws are extended, one arm still holding Jason against the edge of the salad bar. Blood is welling from his shoulder where Gerard’s claws are digging in. “I warned you, Hale. I warned you that there would be war!”

Talia’s face is pale, but she doesn’t back down. “There is no need to—”

“There is every fucking _need_!”

He’s crazy. Everyone said he was crazy, but now Alex really sees it. His bloodlust and thirst for revenge are going to destroy everything, and there really is going to be a war, and there’s nobody who can—

“No.” Chris Argent steps into his father’s space. His expression is grave. His voice is as low as a growl. “No war. Not for territory, not for Kate, and not for two kids. Not for _anything_.”

And Alex remembers that the only time Chris ever stood up to his father was to prevent a pack war last time. 

“Chris.” Gerard releases Jason at last, and turns to face his son. “Chris, Chris, Chris, are you challenging my authority?”

He’s smiling. Why is he even smiling?

And then Gerard shifts, bones cracking and fangs appearing as his mouth elongates into a snout.

And then he attacks his son.

 

***

 

Derek wheels away, pulling Alex with him. “Move! Move!”

Alex stumbles, trying to twist back and check that Jason’s okay, that he’s not hurt, but Talia grabs his other arm and pulls him away. Something crashes behind them, and a howl fills the air. All around them, diners are moving toward the exits, some hurrying outside, and some clustering around by the doors to watch.

“What the _fuck_ is going on?” Deaton asks when they reach him. Alex doesn’t think he’s ever heard him swear before.

“Pack challenge,” Peter says in his usual slightly bored tone, as though he’s heedless of the carnage taking place in the middle of the restaurant. Alex can smell the stink of fear rolling off him though. “I guess Christopher finally grew a pair.”

Alex meets his gaze, still struggling for breath, and Peter gives him a small nod.

Talia leans in close and grabs Peter by the collar. “I don’t know what the hell you did, but I know you did something!”

Peter’s eyes flash gold. “Why don’t you wait and see who wins this thing before you start blaming me?”

Alex twists around in Derek’s grasp.

Both Gerard and Chris are half shifted now, more wolves than men. They are claws and fangs and motion. They’re moving so fast that it’s hard to tell which of them has the upper hand. The other two betas are half shifted as well, growling and pacing but keeping their distance for now.

Jason’s on the floor, huddled under the overhanging ledge of the salad bar. There’s blood on his face.

“If Chris loses, it’s _war_ ,” Talia says. “God.”

“If it’s war, then half the packs in the west coast just saw Gerard go apeshit on two kids who were only talking,” Peter tells her. “You’ll easily end up with more allies than him.” He shakes his head as though to clear it. “But it’s not going to come to that, because Chris is _not_ going to lose.”

Alex’s heart is trying to beat out of his chest.

God.

Chris _can’t_ lose.

 

***

 

It seems like time slow down in places, and speeds up in others.

It’s brutal. Alex has never seen anything like it. There’s so much blood. How can either of them still be fighting let alone standing when there’s so much _blood_?

When it happens, it happens so suddenly that for a second Alex doesn’t even know what he’s seen. The restaurant has been pretty much trashed. Hotel security is on scene now, but they’re keeping well away. This is internal pack business.

When it happens, Alex isn’t even looking at Chris and Gerard anymore. He’s looking at Jason.

He hears Gerard roar, and looks back at him in time to see him lunge toward Chris again, claws extended. He swipes at Chris’s throat—Alex’s heart skips a beat—and Chris flinches back. Gerard’s claws scrape down his collarbone, narrowly missing his jugular. For a second Gerard is off balance, and that’s when Chris attacks again.

He jams his claws into Gerard’s gut, just fucking _skewers_ him. Gerard howls in pain, and tries to wrench free. He jerks away, but Chris’s other hand is already pressing up against his throat. Gerard twists to try and escape him, and it’s that instinctive movement that does it. Chris tears his throat open.

There’s so much blood.

Chris steps away, and Gerard slumps forward onto his knees.

Chris moves around behind him, grabs him by the hair, and pulls his head back.

“No more,” he says, words ragged.

Alex closes his eyes as Chris brings his claws down again to finish the job.

 

***

 

Chris looks like a walking corpse. His clothes are in shreds, and he’s covered in blood. He stands panting over his father’s corpse, claws still extended, eyes burning alpha red. He growls at the betas.

One of them bares his throat, backing away.

The other one bares his teeth.

Jason scrambles out from under the salad bar, and stands beside Chris. Chris reaches out and touches his shoulder, and Jason nods. He spreads his fingers and extends his claws. Rolls his shoulders and _growls_.

Alex’s chest tightens. He’s never heard a sound like that come from Jason before. Jason is gentle and kind. Alex is terrified that this side of him, the beta shaping up to fight, will get him hurt, or worse.

Jason and Chris stare down the defiant beta together. The beta snaps and snarls, but at last bares his throat.

Alex doesn’t trust the beta’s submission at all. He doesn’t trust either of them, and he notices Chris doesn’t turn his back on them either until they both slink away.

Chris shifts back into his human form.

Hotel security moves in at last.

Alex doesn’t hear whatever the security guards say to Chris in an undertone, and Chris’s face remains expressionless. He only nods curtly, breathing heavily as his body struggles to heal, and leans on Jason a little as Jason leads him toward the exit.

“Jason?” Alex calls.

Derek tightens his grip on him.

“No, they can’t just go,” Alex whispers. “What’s happening? Mom?”

Talia curls her fingers around his wrist. “Chris has to finish this, sweetheart. He has to get his pack into line before anything else.”

Alex understands that, on some level. Of course he does. But he can feel the invisible threads of his bond twisting around his chest, tugging him toward Jason. His wolf can’t ignore them.

Alex pulls free of Talia and Derek and pushes through the crowd of people by the door. “Jason?”

They’re heading for reception. Chris is leaving bloody boot prints on the tiles, and startled onlookers in his wake. Alex follows them through reception, and outside into the blast of warm evening air. He’s just in time to see a black SUV pulling in.

The driver’s door opens and Allison jumps out. “Dad!”

She folds herself into Chris’s embrace, while he makes a pained expression. He hugs her back despite it.

Scott gets out of the passenger’s side, then goes around and opens the back door. A kid climbs out.

Alex, lingering by the entrance to reception, feels a jolt of recognition. It’s Simon. Allison and Scott went to get Simon. He remembers what Peter said about Gerard playing his pack members against one another so that there would be chaos when he died. Alex doesn’t care if, back in Phoenix, the rest of the Argents are ripping one another apart. Jason and Simon are okay. Allison and Chris are. He doesn’t want them to go back to Phoenix.

Chris says something to Simon, and flashes his alpha red eyes at him. Then Simon flinches a little when Jason hugs him. Scott takes his hand and draws him away from the SUV.

Jason turns around to look at Alex. His expression is serious.

“I’ll come back,” he calls. “I’ll come back, Alex.”

Alex nods, and swallows around the lump in his throat.

Chris and Allison and Jason get the SUV, and, a moment later, they’re gone, leaving Scott and Simon standing on the edge of the drive.

“So,” Scott says, fishing his phone out of his pocket. “Do you like pictures of kittens?”

 

***

 

The summit might be over, but that was before the shit hit the fan with the Argents. Now most of the delegates are staying a few days, talking over what this means for political stability on the west coast, and speculating on whether or not Chris Argent can actually survive the week.

There are rumors out of Phoenix that the Argent pack is turning on itself, just like Peter said it would. Just like Gerard trained them to do. It’s not a takeover, it’s a free-for-all. The news anchors can barely contain their excitement.

Alex tries not to panic.

He tries to bond with Simon, but Simon doesn’t like him. Simon isn’t openly hostile, but he’s obviously upset at being with another pack, with the _Hales_ , and he’s upset that his grandfather is dead even though, under Scott’s prodding, he admits that Uncle Chris is nice.

Alex remembers what Peter said about fear. He thinks that Simon’s adulation of Gerard comes from that. It’s a survival mechanism, probably, or it’s Stockholm syndrome. Simon seems to like Scott a lot, and Alex knows it’s not just down to Scott’s guileless cheer. It’s also because Scott introduced himself as a McCall, not a Hale. But it’s okay. Simon’s safe. They can work on the rest later.

Alex heads up to Peter’s room two day’s after Gerard’s death to find him packing.

“You’re leaving?” he asks.

“I think my work here is done, pup,” Peter says with a slight smile.

“Don’t you want to wait for Chris to come back?”

“Not really.” Peter seems to consider his answer for a moment, then shrugs. “If he lives, I’ll find out on the news, the same as everyone else. For what it’s worth, I hope he does. And of course I hope that Jason does. More than that, I think they _will_. But I don’t feel the need to hang around here in the meantime.”

“Are you sure of that?” Alex asks him.

“Anything he has to say to me, he should have said twenty years ago,” Peter says. He grins. “Besides, I’ve booked three days at The Fairmont at the sort of prices I’ll need to sell my firstborn child to afford—I wonder how much Malia would fetch, actually—and Lydia gets in tonight. I refuse to disappoint her by being late.”

Alex chews his lip worriedly.

Peter folds a shirt into his suitcase. “What is it?”

“You and Chris…”

“It’s entirely possible to love two very different people at two very different points in your life,” Peter says quietly. He lifts his arm, and Alex steps closer and slides in under it. Peter squeezes him gently. “Not that you’ll ever need to figure that out for yourself, pup. Not with Jason. He’ll come back to you, and then he’ll never leave your side.”

Alex hugs him tighter.

He doesn’t ever want to let him go.

 

***

 

Alex is playing with Stiles’s plush orca when his phone beeps with a message. It’s past midnight, but he can’t sleep. Derek is snoring softly in the next bed.

The text is from an unknown number: _It’s Jason. We’re okay. Chris thinks we should be back by the end of the week. I love you. Sorry if this woke you._

Alex almost drops his phone in his haste to call him back.

“Alex?”

“Are you really okay?” Alex asks. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Jason sounds tired. “It’s been pretty crazy here. The pack is in like pieces. I don’t even know how many fights Chris has been in since we got back. But he’s doing good. He’s got this. Are _you_ okay?”

“I miss you,” Alex says. “But Simon’s good, so, yeah, as long as you come back soon?”

“I can’t wait.” The smile is evident in his tone. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Alex says, and wonders if he’ll ever get tired of hearing it, or of saying it.

He doesn't think so. 


	24. Chapter 24

(20)

 

“Happy birthday!” Stiles bounces excitedly on Alex’s bed.

“Omigod,” Alex mutters into his pillow. “It’s still _dark_. What is _wrong_ with you?”

“Stiles!” Derek yells from down the hall. “Leave Alex alone! You can’t have cake until tonight anyway!”

“Fine!” Stiles yells back. He collapses on top of Alex. “Happy birthday though,” he whispers, before peeling himself off and disappearing again.

“Jesus,” Jason mutters from beside him. “What time is it?”

Alex rolls over and reaches for his phone. He squints at the screen for a while before it makes sense. “It’s a little past five.”

Jason makes a pained noise. “Are all humans that crazy?”

“I think it’s just Stiles.” Alex shifts closer to him and pillows his head on his chest. Jason’s heartbeat is loud and calm. Alex likes the way his head rises and falls as Jason breathes, and the way Jason’s arm comes around him. He closes his eyes again.

Jason’s breath tickles his hair. “Chris is arriving today.”

“Yeah.” Alex smoothes his hand over the dips between Jason’s ribs. “It’ll be okay though.”

“I hope so.”

Jason has changed. He’s not the same kid he was when Gerard was alive. Those bloody few days of fighting after Chris became alpha ripped away the last remnants of his innocence, and hardened his edges. He lost his fear as well, somewhere in the middle of all that fighting. He’s not scared to stand up for himself anymore. He’s not scared to stare down a room full of his enemies and let them hear his growl.

Alex wonders if even Chris realizes exactly how much Jason has changed.

When he’s alone with Alex though, when he’s with the Hales, flashes of that sweet, kind tongue-tied kid still emerge. They can still be shy together.

Jason and Simon have been staying in Beacon Hills for a few weeks now. It’s been good. Simon is opening up a little more each day, and being around other kids has been healthy for him. He’s still a little wary of the Hales, but he’s got four years of Gerard’s poison to work out of his system. Nobody expects a miracle.

Jason strokes his hair, and Alex nuzzles closer.

It was full moon last night, and Jason and Alex ran together as wolves for the first time. It felt right. Alex’s wolf had thrummed with happiness to have her mate running beside her. His scent combining with hers. His teeth in her ruff. His tongue lapping at her muzzle. She could have howled at the moon for hours.

“You’re so perfect,” Jason murmurs sleepily. “Not giving you up for anything.”

Alex drifts off to sleep with a smile.

 

***

 

He wakes up a few hours later when Jason brushes a gentle kiss against his mouth. He blinks his eyes open. He’s lying on his back, and Jason’s beside him propped on one elbow. “Good morning.”

“Happy birthday,” Jason smiles.

Alex stretches and smiles. Jason leans in for another kiss. This one is a lot deeper, and oh, oh okay. He’s going somewhere with this.

Sex is something they’ve got better with. Like a lot better.

Alex shifts his legs open and brings his knees up. His dick is hard and aching by the time Jason even finds the lube. Alex reaches down a hand to touch himself, but pulls it away again at the last moment.

Jason lubes up his palm and closes his hand around Alex’s dick.

It feels good, but it also feels weird. Because a dick, no.

“You’re so beautiful,” Jason says, eyes wide and earnest. “The most beautiful girl in the world.”

And maybe it’s cheesy and whatever, but Alex is flooded with warmth as he jerks his hips up and thrusts into Jason’s hand. He gasps and claps a hand over his mouth and Jason slides a finger of his other hand into his ass.

Because _shit_ , they didn’t lock the door, and what if Stiles isn’t the only one who decides to come barging in with birthday wishes? What if it’s one of the kids? What if it’s his _parents_?

Jason grins at him like he knows exactly what he’s thinking. “Better hurry up then,” he whispers.

Fuck.

Fuck him sideways.

Alex shudders and groans, and this is simultaneously the best and the worst birthday present he’s ever received. His eyes roll back in his head when Jason releases him for a moment, leans down, and then sucks his dick into his mouth. Meanwhile, he’s still working a lubed-up finger inside him, twisting it around until it hits just the right spot, and--

Alex comes hard, back arching off the bed, and it’s messy and electric and glorious. He flops back down onto the mattress panting, shivering, and reaches down to tug Jason up by the hair.

“Come here, you.”

Jason climbs up him, eyes bright. “Happy birthday,” he says again.

“Oh my fucking god.” Alex laughs weakly. “I think you broke me. I’m never leaving this bed.”

“Works for me,” Jason tells him with a grin.

 

 

***

 

After breakfast they go for a walk in the Preserve. Alex is wearing the summery dress he found at the charity shop in town. He likes the way the fabric swishes against his knees as he walks. He likes the way Jason can’t stop staring at his legs.

And most of all he likes the way that when he meets Jason’s gaze he sees nothing there but love and acceptance.

It lights up his entire universe.

 

***

 

Chris and Allison arrive just before dinner. Talia greets Chris at the front of the house and welcomes him onto her territory, but the formalities don’t last too much longer after that. Alex supposes Chris will always feel a little uncomfortable surrounded by the Hale pack, but it’s obvious that he’s making an effort. Allison is much more open. She’s delighted to see Alex again, and Scott, and wow, that’s gonna be a whole other level of awkward when Chris finds out.

Except maybe he already knows.

Alex sees the way he looks at Allison when she smiles at Scott like he’s sunshine, and Scott smiles back the same way. Of course Chris has noticed. Everyone has. 

They go through the house and into the back yard. The massive trestle table has been set up so that everyone can have space to eat as soon as the food is ready. The kids are playing ball and the adults are sitting around talking and laughing. Matty is piggybacking Jacob around while Jacob bellows out directions. It’s typical pack chaos.

Alex wonders if things should feel more strained than they are, but it’s obvious that Chris trusts them. He might never be entirely relaxed around them, but he knows nobody here is planning to rip his throat out.  

Stiles is less interested in pack politics than he is in the promise of birthday cake. Still, he shakes hands with Chris firmly, and surprises Allison by hugging her, and then edges closer to the table so he’s in prime position when the food appears.

Lydia and Peter sit together on the steps of the back porch, fingers linked.

Chris notices that as well, and something like regret softens his expression for a moment.

John and Melissa and a few of the other humans are here as well, keeping to the background.

“Chris,” Jason says at last. “Can we talk in private? It’s pack business.”

Chris nods, and lets Jason lead him back inside. Alex and Talia go with them.

The library is dark and cool and quiet. The sound of the kids playing outside is muted. Alex and Jason sit on the couch. Talia leans on her desk, and gestures for Chris to take the chair opposite the couch.

“What’s this about?” Chris asks.

Jason clears his throat. “Ally said that you met with the Parkers.”

Alex tries not to flinch. The Parkers are Ebony’s pack.

“I did,” Chris says, nodding sharply.

Jason swallows, as though he can’t bring himself to ask.

“Given what’s happened with our pack…” Chris sighs.

The Argents are not the pack they once were. In that first week, Chris killed four different betas who challenged him, and factional fighting took care of at least another nine. Most of the packs affiliated with the Argents got the hell out of Phoenix and immediately petitioned other packs for sanctuary. The Argent pack itself was decimated by death and by desertion, just like Peter had predicted. Just like Gerard, that crazy fuck, had wanted. It had all come down like a house of cards. 

“Well,” Chris says at last, “Melody Parker has made it clear that she no longer wants an alliance with us. She’s withdrawn the contract agreeing to mate you with her daughter.”

Jason exhales slowly. Beside him, Alex sags in relief.

Chris glances at Talia curiously. “Is that the only reason you wanted to talk in private, Jason?”

“No, it’s not.” Jason draws a deep breath, and flashes his eyes at Chris.

They’re red. Alpha red.

The first time it happened, Alex freaked out. So did Jason. But then Alan Deaton told them it wasn’t unheard of. It was unusual as hell, but not unheard of.

If Chris is surprised, he only shows it by narrowing his eyes slightly. His appears more intrigued than threatened. Alex looks at Talia, and sees that's she's relaxed slightly, the tightness around her eyes vanishing. This is no challenge and Chris, thankfully, is no Gerard. 

Chris raises his eyebrows. “I’m guessing you didn’t kill an alpha to take their power since I last saw you?”

Jason shakes his head. “It just happened. I just changed.”

“You grew into yourself,” Chris says. “And now you’re here to tell me you can’t be in my pack anymore.”

Jason nods warily.

Chris stands up, and gestures for Jason to do the same. Then he sticks his hand out. “Congratulations, Alpha Cormack.”

Jason shakes his hand solemnly, and then pulls him into a sudden hug. His voice is choked with relief. “Thank you. Thank you, Uncle Chris.”

It’s the first time that Alex has ever seen Chris Argent smile.

 

***

 

“I’m going to be sick,” Stiles groans, rolling around on the picnic rug and hugging his stomach.

“It’s your own fault,” Derek tells him.

“You’re not helping,” Stiles grumbles. “Why aren’t you helping?”

Derek sighs, and reaches out to slide his hand under Stiles’s shirt. Moments later, black lines appear along the veins of his arm as he draws Stiles’s pain away.

Alex leans into Jason’s side as they watch the kids run around with sparklers. Over in the middle of the yard Uncle William looks to be doing something complicated with firecrackers. Peter is helping. Or at least, he’s standing there with his arms folded over his chest, giving instructions while William gets more and more pissed. 

Scott and Allison are sitting with them, not quite touching although it’s obvious they both want to be. Scott’s sharing his pretzels with Allison.

“Why did you let me eat so much cake?” Stiles demands.

“Oh, I _let_ you,” Derek says. “What part of ‘Stiles, if you eat any more cake you’ll be sick’ was letting you?”

“Cake is so good though,” Stiles says. “Why does it hate me?”

Derek just shakes his head.

Stiles sits up and straddles Derek’s lap. He makes a face at him, and tries to jab him in the ribs. Derek reaches up to stop him, it turns into a wrestling match, and Alex hears the sudden faint snap of leather as Stiles’s amulet goes flying.

Stiles’s very unique, very _human_ scent tickles his nose.

They all freeze and stare at Allison. She reaches out and picks up the amulet and hands it back to Stiles.

“Um, thanks?” He takes it with shaking fingers.

“I’m guessing you, and Lydia, and that lady with the dark hair, and the man with her… and maybe that guy over there, right?” Allison raises her eyebrows.

Derek growls softly, his eyes flashing. He sits up to put himself between Stiles and Allison.

“Um,” Stiles says, peering around Derek’s shoulder. “What?”

“And Scott,” Allison says, completely unfazed by Derek. “Except not anymore.” She shrugs at their surprise. “Oh, please. I knew Scott wasn’t a born wolf the second he came up with that bullshit story about salt. Then, on the drive to Phoenix, he couldn’t open his packet of candy so he asked me if I had any scissors.” She points at Scott and extends a claw. “Really, _scissors_?”

Scott turns bright red, even in the gloom.

“Dumbass,” Derek mutters, relaxing slightly.

“Should have got that ass tattoo,” Stiles whispers, wrapping his arms around Derek from behind.

“We’re not going to tell anyone,” Allison says.

“We?” Alex asks.

“My dad guessed too.” Allison takes another pretzel. “The Argents…we’re not hunters anymore. Never again. We’re a different now. We’re going to be a better pack.”

Pack.

Alex feels a tiny shudder of trepidation go through him at the word, and Jason reaches out and takes his hand.

The Cormack pack is tiny. It’s two people, Jason and Simon. But Alex knows that soon Jason will ask him to join it, and he’ll agree. They’ve already talked about buying back the Cormacks’ old house, and getting William and Derek to help renovate it. So the pack is two people now, but soon it will be three, and after that? One day the house will be full again.

One day.

They’ve got all the time they need. 

 

 

 

 


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The bonus Jason chapter!

“When did you know?” Alex asks him one morning. “About us?”

And Jason stops to think.

 

***

 

Jason’s mom always says he walks around with his head in the clouds. That’s true, mostly. He’s focused on his schoolwork and his basketball training, and so sometimes he doesn’t really notice a lot of other stuff going on around him. Like he doesn’t notice when his biology teacher Mrs. Gatemen changes her hair color, and he doesn’t notice when they redecorate the school cafeteria, and he also didn’t notice when some kid in eighth grade turns out to be a freak.

“Wait, what?” he asks one lunchtime, like only ten minutes after everyone else has already been discussing it. He was thinking about his game stats, okay? “What kind of freak?”

Jocelyn reaches over and helped herself to his fries. They’re cold by now anyway. “He’s a _boy_ , but his wolf is a _girl_.”

“Oh, that’s weird,” Jason says, and wonders if his parents will buy him those new trainers he wants. His old ones are getting kind of snug, and starting to pinch his toes.

So no, he doesn’t really notice Alex Hale at all.

Until that one day he’s walking down the hall and sees a kid walking toward him. Just some kid with brown hair. Kind of skinny, and wearing a frown, walking with his gaze fixed on his shoes. There is nothing all that special about him. Nothing all that noticeable.

And then the kid passes him, and Jason catches his scent.

Wow.

It’s like fresh air and rain and loam and cinnamon and clean sheets and everything in the world that is _good_ , all wrapped up together. Jason didn’t even know anything could smell that nice. He spins around, but the kid is already pushing on a classroom door.

“Wow,” he says.

“What?” Kieran asks him.

“Did you smell that?” Jason sniffs, and oh, okay, now all he can smell is school. Kids and floor wax and cafeteria food and gym socks. Gross.

“Smell what?” Kieran says.

“Nothing,” Jason says. “Nothing, I guess.”

Maybe he imagined it.

 

***

 

He didn’t imagine it, except the weird thing is, nobody else seems to be able to smell it. Jason’s going through puberty, so his sense of smell is sort of weirdly off about some things sometimes. Like he suddenly hates the smell of freshly mown grass. What’s that even about? Who hates the smell of freshly mown grass?

He asks his dad.

About the kid who smells good, not about the grass.

“Well,” his dad says, leaning in his doorway, “it sounds like your wolf is attracted to this boy.”

What? Really?

Jason takes a little while to mull that over. He’s been attracted to other kids before, both boys and girls, but none of them have ever smelled like that. “But nobody else thinks he smells so good. And nobody else ever smelled like he does.”

“I think that means it’s probably very special,” his dad says.

“Oh,” Jason says. “Wow.”

His dad just smiles and closes his door.

 

***

 

It takes Jason a little while to figure out that Alex Hale is the kid whose wolf is a girl. Well, it takes him about a week. That’s when he spots a bunch of other eighth-graders shoving Alex into a locker and calling him a loser and a bitch and a freak. By the time Jason gets there the other kids have gone, and Alex Hale is kneeling on the floor picking up his dropped books. Jason doesn’t know what to say to him, so he doesn’t say anything. Just retrieves a few scattered pages of notes from where they’ve slid across to the other side of the floor, and holds them out to Alex when he stands up.

“Thanks,” Alex mutters, not even looking up.

And then he hurries away from Jason.

 

***

Basketball is Jason’s favorite thing in the world. So he works up his courage to ask Alex to shoot some hoops with him. Honestly, he’s kind of surprised when Alex not only agrees, but also actually turns up. Jason doesn’t want to freak him out about the whole scent thing. It feels like it would be kind of unfair to put that sort of pressure on Alex, when he’s already pretty skittish. But maybe it would also be unfair to like lull him into a false sense of security with friendship, and then tell him that he likes him in another way?

“Well, it sounds like he needs a friend most of all,” his mom says when they’re on their way to the grocery store that afternoon. “So that’s what you need to be for him. Just be yourself, and don’t pressure him.”

“Okay.” Jason chews his lower lip. “But his whole wolf thing, where he thinks—”

“He doesn’t think anything,” his mom says. “This is Alpha Hale’s son, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then his wolf is a female. That’s a fact.”

“It seems complicated,” Jason says with a sigh.

His mom swears under her breath as someone steals the park she wanted. Then, when she pulls into one a little further down the row, she switches off the ignition and turns in her seat so she can look him directly in the eye. “You like him, and your wolf likes him. What’s complicated about that?”

“Oh,” Jason says. “Nothing?”

“Exactly,” his mom says. “Exactly.”

 

***

 

Jason screws everything up the day he tries to kiss Alex on the bastketball court, because Alex freaks out and runs. Jason walks home hating himself, and stomps up the steps to his bedroom and flings himself facedown on his bed. When he was five, he had a crush on Mara, a girl in his kindergarten class. For some reason—he doesn’t even know what the fuck he was thinking—he thought she’d be impressed if he knocked over the sandcastle she’d spent ages building. Except when he’d done it, laughing with delight, Mara had started crying. And Jason totally understood why. He didn’t need the teacher to explain it. What he didn’t understand was why he’d done it. Why would she have thought it was funny too?

He wrote Mara a letter to say how sorry he was, and put stars and glitter on it, and helped his mom bake her a cupcake, and after that things were pretty cool again, even though she always looked at him a little suspiciously when he came near the sandpit. Jason is pretty sure that glitter and cupcakes aren’t going to cut it now.

And, once again, he’s still not exactly sure what he did wrong, because he thought Alex liked him to, in that way. And even if he doesn’t, that’s okay—well, it’s not okay, but Jason can suck it up—but how do they get back to being friends after this?

Alex doesn’t talk to him for a while, and tries to avoid him, and even makes up a lie about not being able to come over and play video games because he has to go to a friend’s birthday party. Jason knows Alex’s doesn’t have friends outside the little group of unpopular kids he sits with at lunch.

He’s pretty pissed for a few days, until it occurs to him that he’s being really dumb. Alex isn’t lying to hurt him. He’s lying to protect himself from being hurt. So Jason calls him.

“I think when I tried to kiss you, I messed everything up.”

For a while Alex doesn’t say anything and Jason thinks he’s ended the call. Then, at last, he says “You didn’t mess up. I just didn’t get it.”

“Didn’t get what?” Jason chews on his lower lip.

“I didn’t get why you would want to kiss me?”

“Because I like you,” Jason tells him. Then, when Alex asks him if it’s like a boyfriend thing or a girlfriend thing, Jason says, “Both.”

“ _Both_ ,” Alex whispers back, as though the word is something magical and terrifying at the same time. Then he invites Jason to the movies.

 

***

 

If Jason thought he was terrified of Derek Hale—and he is, make no mistake—he’s even more terrified of Talia Hale. Talia doesn’t need a leather jacket and a glare to make his guts clench up. Talia actually has a friendly smile that Derek totally didn’t inherit, and there’s nothing about her wardrobe that suggests she’s going to go on a murder spree any second now. Still, Jason is terrified.

Talia Hale is the Alpha of Beacon Hills, not just the Hale pack, and Jason is going to her _house_. It’s sort of a big deal, because he’s dating Alex, and he wants to show that he’s serious by seeking the approval of Alex’s alpha. Who is also _the_ Alpha. And also Alex’s _mom_. It’s like a terrifying trifecta.

When Talia opens the door but doesn’t let him in that first day, Jason thinks that maybe she didn’t get what he was here for. And then he’s mostly distracted by Alex, who’s wearing a dress, and looks really shy and nervous but also pretty, and Jason really, really wants to kiss him.

So he does.

Then, on the second day, Talia doesn’t let him in the house again.

The same thing happens on the third and the fourth day, and that’s when Jason knows for sure that Talia Hale doesn’t approve of him. It’s the sort of hit to his confidence that he’s never had before. It’s not like he thinks he’s all that special or whatever, but he gets good grades and he doesn’t get in trouble, and he comes from a small but respected pack, and so what the hell is wrong with him that he’s not good enough for Alex?

And okay, sure, of course he’s not good enough for Alex because Alex is incredible, but, like on paper or whatever, why isn’t he good enough?

His dad finds him crying in the back yard after he breaks up with Alex. Later that night he hears his dad on the phone to Alpha Hale. A few days later his dad goes to meet her.

When he comes home he’s wearing a frown, and just shakes his head slightly at Jason.

“I don’t understand,” his mom says quietly. “I don’t understand. Jason’s a good boy.”

“I don’t understand either,” his dad says.

Yeah, Jason’s a good boy, but he’s apparently not good enough.

 

***

 

School suddenly sucks now that Alex is avoiding him. Jason gets into a fight for the first time ever, with that Charlie kid who always picks on Alex. He gets suspended as well, but his parents are actually cool about it.

Well, not totally cool.

He’s grounded, and has extra chores, and he has to promise not to ever do anything like that again, but they know why he did it. And he thinks that, despite their joint how-could-you-be-so-stupid lecture, they actually sort of approve.

 

***

 

Something changes.

Jason doesn’t know what, but suddenly he and his parents have been invited to dinner at the Hales’ house. Jason wears a suit and everything. At first he’s so tongue-tied when he sees Alex that he can’t even say anything, but his dad elbows him and he blurts out: “Hi, Alex! You look…you look _beautiful_!”

Everything after that is perfect.

 

***

 

Stiles is _not_ from Canada.

Holy shit.

 

***

 

It’s kind of tricky dealing with Alex’s gender. They mess up a few times, but they talk it out. Then, after the dance, Alex gives him a handjob in the back of his dad’s car, and Jason blows him in return, and it’s awesome, okay? It’s just fucking awesome, and Jason knows in that moment that they’re meant to be together for always, just like his wolf knew already, and that they can have a physical relationship that okay, might be a little different to other people’s sometimes, but that’s cool. As long as he’s got Alex, it’s more than cool.

 

***

 

“Oh, shit,” Jason says as the lights flash behind him. “Was I speeding?”

They were running late for Alex’s lacrosse game, but Jason doesn’t think he was speeding.

Simon twists his head to look out the back at the police car. “Ha! Dad’s gonna kill you!”

The deputy walks up to the window. “Jason Cormack?”

“Yes, sir.”

The deputy’s face is grave. “Can I get you boys out of the car, please?”

And suddenly it doesn’t feel like some routine traffic stop.

“Okay,” the deputy says when he’s got them off the side of the road. He reaches out and puts a hand on Jason’s shoulder. “I’m sorry to have to tell you there’s been an accident.”

His parents. The pack. Everyone.

Simon collapses into a heap on some lady’s front lawn, howling and wailing. Jason kneels beside him, rubbing his back. He can’t feel anything. He knows that when he does it’ll hit him like a brick wall. He knows that it will crush him. He knows that nothing will ever be the same again.

The deputy drives them to the Hale house.

 

***

 

“I want to go back to the Hales!” Simon sobs in the hotel room. “I want to go back to Talia and Alex!”

Jason steps toward him, wiping his own tears, but Gerard is suddenly there first. He reaches down and closes his hand around Simon’s throat—his _throat_ —and wrenches him upright.

“Shut your goddamn mouth about the Hales!” he shouts, spit flying in Simon’s face. Then he flings him onto the bed Simon bounces a few times then lays still, too shocked to move.

“What the hell?” Jason’s shocked as well. Did that even just happen. “He’s just a little kid!”

Gerard rounds on him, jabbing a clawed finger against his chest. “The Hales are filth. _Filth_. And _you_! You ought to be disgusted with yourself, panting around after some little freak of nature like that!”

“Alex isn’t—”

“If I hear one more word about the Hales, I’ll make sure you both regret it! Do you understand me?” Gerard glowers between them. “Do you _understand_?”

“Yes!” Simon sobs.

Jason jerks his head in a nod. “Yes, Alpha.”

He can hardly force the words out at all.

He wants to be sick.

By the time Chris gets back, Jason and Simon are sitting quietly on one of the beds, heads down.

“I got sandwiches,” Chris says. “The only place that was open. You boys like roast beef?”

They both nod silently.

Gerard laughs. “Guess the drive tired them out after all.”

Jason has the feeling that Chris doesn’t believe it, but nobody contradicts Gerard Argent. He sees that now.

 

***

 

He dreams of Alex most nights.

They aren’t nice dreams. He dreams he’s lost in some kind of huge house, and he can hear Alex calling him, but every time he goes into a new room it’s empty. However fast he moves and however many turns he makes, he can never find Alex.

 

***

 

“If you ever try to betray this pack by going back to the Hales,” Gerard says one day, in a tone as conversational as though he’s discussing the weather, “I will follow you back to Beacon Hills, and I will burn them where they sleep. Do you understand me?”

“I understand, Alpha.”

“And I will make sure you never see Simon again.” Gerard’s smile is almost friendly. “Make the right choice, Jason.”

“Yes, Alpha.”

 

***

 

Going away to college might be the hardest thing Jason has ever had to do. It means a respite from Gerard, which he wants so very much, but it also means leaving Simon in Phoenix. Simon’s different now. He parrots back a lot of Gerard’s stuff unthinkingly. Like Beacon Hills should belong to the Argents. Like Talia Hale is a conniving bitch. Like Kate’s a hero. At first Jason had tried to stop him from saying stuff like that, but now he doesn’t. He’s afraid that Simon will tell Gerard.

A part of him doesn’t understand, because surely Simon has to remember how good the Hales were to them, and he has to remember the time that Gerard picked him up and threw him across the room. Another part of him recognizes that Simon has unconsciously rationalized this in the only way he can: if he’s good, then Gerard likes him and he won’t get hurt. And hating the Hales is good.

When Gerard enrolls him in college as Jason Argent instead of Jason Cormack, he ignores the way his guts twist and thanks his alpha instead.

Simon’s not the only one losing this battle.

 

***

 

Ebony is a nice girl, but Jason doesn’t feel anything for her. He suspects she doesn’t feel anything for him either, but she’s got the kind of upbeat attitude about everything, and says she figures it will all work out. There are worse people he could be getting mated to, that’s for sure. And Jason almost convinces himself he’s happy, until the night that Alex Hale walks back into his life.

That scent. How could he ever forget that scent?

Alex is taller now. He wears his hair long, and it suits him. He’s maybe a little too thin, but god, Jason wants him. It’s only thanks to years of living with Gerard and learning how to shut his whining fucking wolf down that he can get through their brief conversation without faltering.

Afterward he walks Ebony to her car, and then goes back to meet Allison.

“That was _him_ ,” Allison says. “Alex. Alex _Hale_. God, Jason, I’m so sorry.”

“You didn’t know.”

“No, I mean, I’m so _sorry_.” Ally’s big dark eyes are filled with tears. “Because he’s funny, and cute, and…I’ll just shut up now because I’m only going to make it worse, aren’t I?”

“He’s a Hale,” Jason says, like that settles it.

“They can’t all be bad,” Allison offers tentatively.

A shudder of fear runs through Jason. They might be over seven hundred miles from Phoenix, but a part of Jason is terrified that Gerard will somehow hear her.

“He’s a Hale,” he repeats, and Allison nods and bites her lip as they drive home.

 

***

 

God, he shouldn’t. He shouldn’t, but as soon as Alex walks into that hotel room, he can’t help himself. He has to touch him, to scent him, and to apologize over and over again for hurting him.

Every part of Alex is a revelation: his smile, his tears, his touch. When they kiss it’s like Jason can breathe again. When they make love, it’s like the rest of the universe is holding its breath.

He loves him.

He loves him.

It’s the only thing he knows.

It’s the only thing he needs to know.

It’s his salvation and his consolation and his damnation all at the same time.

And he needs it.

 

***

 

Jesus fuck.

Chris is a mess. He’s probably going to bleed out in the back seat of the SUV before they even get to the city limits.

Jason’s driving. Allison is in the back seat with Chris, trying to plug up the worst of his wounds to give his body a chance to heal.

“That fucking asshole,” Chris grunts.

“Who? Gerard?” Allison asks.

“Fucking _Peter_ ,” Chris snorts, and then passes out.

 

***

 

Helping Chris take control of the pack is brutal. Jason’s never had to fight before, but instinct takes over when his back’s against the wall. He remembers the video games he and Alex used to play. How they’d clear a room, check their damage, and open the door to the next shit fight that awaited them. That’s what this feels like. It feels like it’s never going to end and they’re never going to make it, but, somehow, they do.

Somehow he and Chris and Allison take control. It takes a little over a week, but eventually Chris has defeated all his challengers, and the remains of the Argent pack offer him their submission.

It’s a fucking mess.

It takes another two weeks after that until Chris finally claps him on the shoulder and tells him to take a car and head home.

And maybe Jason is wavering on the edge of total fucking exhaustion, because he just screws his face up. “What?”

“Beacon Hills,” Chris says. “Home.”

 

***

 

“When did you know?” Alex asks him. He’s dappled with sunlight and specks of paint. They’ve been working on the house every day for a month now, eating greasy takeout and sleeping on a mattress on the floor at night. It’s almost done. The new furniture arrives next week. After that it’ll feel like a home again, instead of the empty shell it’s been for years. “About us?”

Jason can’t resist reaching out and jabbing him with his paintbrush.

Alex laughs and spins away, a stripe of blue decorating his torso now.

“I always knew that you were the only one for me,” Jason tells him. “Always.”

And Alex’s smile lights up his world all over again.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it, I'm done! *collapses on keyboard* 
> 
> Thanks so much to everyone who read this, and to the awesome buddy read cheer squad over on Goodreads who kept me motivated and let me laugh at them whenever I ended a chapter on an evil cliffhanger. You guys rock!


	26. Chapter 26

The chapter that isn't really a chapter! I was just going to add this to the final chapter, but then I thought, "No, it's so awesome I want people to get a separate notification!"

 

The incredibly talented [the-bree-cheese](http://the-bree-cheese.tumblr.com) made this picture of Alex for me. Seriously, go to her Tumblr and check it out. She makes beautiful covers! 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is a companion piece to Little Wild Animal. Quick rundown if you haven't read that: Everyone's a wolf except Stiles, who's a feral human rescued by Derek.  
> Alex Hale is the original character who started off in that fic as filler, then pretty much stole every scene he was in.  
> So here's his story, for all the people who asked for it!  
> (I'm looking at you, littlefrog1025!)  
> The number in brackets at the top of each chapter is Alex's age. 
> 
> DW
> 
> ***
> 
> Also, I keep forgetting to tell people I'm now on tumblr:[thisdiscontentedwinter](http://thisdiscontentedwinter.tumblr.com)


End file.
